kylemeister wrote on 09/23/14 at 15:23:43:


I also saw the interview and was also similarly intrigued but  also could not find the game file. I could not even locate his name.

@kylemeister, thanks for the info, I do have Keene's Flank Openings which is very good. Will check it out. But do not have Informant  114. Cannot buy everything!

At the Chessbase website and at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3ioTJhUmiY
there is an interview with top Egyptian GM Bassem Amin, who is currently one of the top specialists in the KIA. He discusses his win against GM Romain Edouard in the recent European Club Cup in BIlbao. Unfortunately this game does not appear in the tournament pgn file. Has anyone seen it anywhere?

Well objectively the best thing to do is definitely to go c3 (well Bd3 first to wait for c5 I suppose) and transpose to the Ngf3 Tarrasch stuff.

That's a modest achievement for white vs a KIA but obviously black is trying to provoke that by playing like this, so.....

iirc white might be able to avoid the direct transposition by delaying d4/e5 a little with c3 etc. That ends up with blacks bishop on b6 which changes things a little.

I suffered a loy playing vs the KIA in two games last year. The classic or standard way: e4-e3-Nd2-Nf3-g3-Bg2-0-0-Qe2-e5, etc... plus a kingside attack. Not exactly this order but you get the idea.

You have to be prepared to face it. It's not theoretically dangerous but OTB it's not easy to handle if you don't know a plan to combat it. Once you get prepared, it's OK for black.

Same thing as preparing something against 1.e4 and 1.d4 but not against 1.c4 (or pure Reti, for example). You suffer it once, twice... and then you prepare something not to get blown off the board with such an "innocent" system.

Salut,

I've not yet seen Neil McDonald's new book on the KIA but I was intrigued to see that in the pdf extract at the Everyman website he is suggesting the move order 1 e4 e6 2 d3 d5 3 Nd2 Nf6 4 g3, instead of 4 Nf3, to avoid Watson's recommendation of 4...Bc5.

This goes against the conventional wisdom of the last half-century or so, which supported 4 Nf3 in order to have more options against the 4...Nc6 line (i.e. White is not committed to a fianchetto).

So I'm left wondering whether McDonald has found anything encouraging for White against 1 e4 e6 2 d3 d5 3 Nd2 Nf6 4 g3 Nc6 (planning in some move order or other to exchange on e4 and play ...e5, ...Bc5, ...0-0, ...a5, ....b6 and ...Ba6) or whether he merely regards allowing this as a lesser evil.

Incidentally, I have noted two high level white victories recently for the KIA vs the French, but both arose from a Nf3 move order.
Kamsky-Lenderman and Nepomniashchi-Yakovenko.