gramsci wrote on 09/09/11 at 07:35:19:


One book about answers to 1.Nf3 is Beating Unusual Chess Openings by Palliser. For the White side, there is of course e.g. Marin. Starting Out: The Accelerated Dragon is a good complement to these books.

After playing the King's Indian for the majority of my chess life before 2100 FIDE and then switching to the Grünfeld, 1.c4 has always provided me with a big problem. I did not enjoy the King's Indian setup against the Botvinnik or the g3/Bg2/Nf3/Nc3/b4/b5/Rb1 type plans when I played a King's Indian setup, and the Grünfeld setup 1. c4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Nc3 d5 has given me many a headache. Eventually I just settled to begin studying the Symmetrical.

Nf6, g6, Bg7, 0-0, responding to e2-e4 with ...d6.  There's no need to treat the English as a completely different opening; often you will transpose to the Fianchetto, and if you don't, you can count yourself lucky, most of the time.  Unless you are facing a master who is also a specialist in the English, you are unlikely to find yourself in a known variation that is worse for Black than the Fianchetto KID.  There are lines where White benefits from having delayed d2-d4, or played d2-d3 instead.  But they, and the advantages they confer, are subtle.  If you can survive a Fianchetto KID without playing the entire game in theory, you can survive the English.

Why learn a different system when you can be move ordered by White just playing d2-d4?  You don't think the English is meaningfully worse than d2-d4, right?

I'm having the same problem nowdays. I used to keep playing KID and, in case of d3, play Dembo or Bologan's recommendation but I find the resulting positions a bit boring. So I'm thinking to change to 1...c5 following Palliser's Botwinnik System with Maroczy set-up incase of a quick d4.