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Apologies or congratulations, but the KID section has a new author again. I will try to follow the main King's Indian news here, and listen to suggestions. Some of my respected subscribers may know that I authored the book Understanding the King's Indian in 2006. My other, lesser chess achievements are presented at mikhailgolubev.wordpress.com.
A new book, Beat the KID by GM Markos was recently published by Quality Chess. For those who can afford to buy at least one KID book per year, this book can be confidently recommended. The title of the book suggests that white players are the main target audience. But, being a regular 'black' KID player (and only occasional 'white' KID player), I find the author's style and attitude to be attractive for players of the black side as well.

Download PGN of January '09 KID games


5. Bd3

The Corus 2009 Bayonet games are the focus of attention for this update. But, to begin with, as some other lines should also be presented, I will use the possibility to annotate one of my own KID games.

After 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Bd3 0-0 6.Nge2 c5 7.d5 e6 8.h3 exd5 9.exd5 Nfd7:

10.f4 as in Topalov-Radjabov, Linares 2006 seems to be thematic. After 10.0-0 Ne5 Black is OK, Vovk - Golubev.


The Classical: 7.0-0 Na6 8.Be3 (7.Be3 Na6 8.0-0)

And here is a game by my great predecessor at ChessPublishing, Victor Mikhalevski, which started 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Be2 0-0 6.Nf3 e5 7.0-0 Na6 8.Be3 Ng4 9.Bg5 Qe8 10.c5!?:

10...exd4 11.Nd5 Qxe4 12.Ne7+ Kh8 13.Bc4!? Did Victor forget his own analysis? (Not an impossible thing, as all us chess annotators know). Or maybe he prepared something new? One way or another, see Mikhalevski - Bennett.


The Bayonet Attack

Now to the main point, 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.b4:

With three alternatives:

9...a5 10.bxa5 Rxa5 11.a4 and here I do not like 11...b6 for Black, see Carlsen - Socko. But it is remarkable that Carlsen played 10.bxa5 and not 10.Ba3, which is known to be the main move.

9...Ne8!?. To some extent, I advocated this line in recent years:

So, before it is finally refuted, here is some food for thought:

10.a4!? f5 11.a5 - Ivanchuk - Radjabov.

10.a4 f5 11.Nd2 - Werle - Vallejo.

10.Nd2 f5 11.c5 Nf6 - Ulibin - Ramakrishna (the actual move order was 9.Nd2 Nd7 10.b4 f5 11.c5 Nf6 - yes, the line can be used against 9.Nd2 as well.)

9...Nh5 (still the main move) 10.Re1 f5 11.Ng5 Nf6 (thematic, but really hard to prepare for Black) 12.f3 Kh8 13.Rb1!?. The Van Wely-Radjabov saga continued at Corus with this Ruslan Ponomariov move. No, it does not win by force!

Finally, 9...Nh5 10.Re1 f5 11.Ng5 Nf6 12.f3 Kh8 13.Ne6 (Van Wely's 'old' move) 13...Bxe6 14.dxe6 Re8!? is a novelty from Grischuk - Radjabov, December:

As of now, I will allow the white players to look for a refutation of Radjabov's home prep themselves!


Till next month, Mikhail

Don't hesitate to share your thoughts and suggestions with me. Any queries or comments to the KID Forum, or to me directly at mikhail@chesspublishing.com (subscribers only) would be most welcome.