Keano wrote on 12/30/08 at 17:06:03:
I go along with what some previous reviewers have said - this book is basically nothing special - at times the author goes out of his way not to make a decision as to the best continuations, and tries to cover too much material in not enough depth. Not up to usual Quality Chess standard - sorry if sounds harsh, but trying to be objective.
Perhaps a better title would have been [url]Trying to Beat the King's Indian[/url], although admittedly it doesn't sound as catchy.
FYI.....any book with the heading
Beat the in the title, is bound to be a let down, unless of course it is followed by the words Kings Gambit, Blackmar Diemer or Latvian etc.
But seriously though, I can honestly say as a KID player for many years that I have not seen anything past or present that comes even close to threatening the existence of it, both the Classical for Vegetarians with 7...Na6 and the Meat eaters variety with 7...Nc6 are both in good shape as far as I can tell.
Curiously the three systems offered by Markos are definitely not for everyone, and liable to get many White players mated unless they have an exceptional defensive grasp, strong nerves, and a highly developed sense of danger. Think I'm kidding..... take a look at the important game Roussel Roozmon, T vs Charbonneau, P - 2008 played towards the end of last year and featuring the
fearsome Bayonet Attack, where Charbonneau improves on the already promising analysis given in
Golubev's Understanding the KID and in so doing blew a hole in Khalifman's recommendation in
Opening For White According to Kramnik the size of a crater!!.
I had intended to include the above mentioned game with extensive notes and guidelines, in a Matemax inspired KID update I was preparing to submit, had the crisis with that section not soon been resolved. Of course there is no guarantee that Tony would have accepted it, either way the work was not wasted, as I managed to unearth quite a bit during the analytical process and learnt a lot along the way.
The KID is alive and well, and its comforting to know that not only Radjabov is making important contributions to its theory.
Toppy