King's Indian Warfare

En dynamisk lærebok i å spille Kongeindisk som ikke et forsvar, men fascinerende krigføring mot hvits d4-åpning. Forfatteren Ilya Smirin har spilt Kongeindisk mye og med suksess, og har til og med positiv score med åpningen etter fire svartpartier mot Kramnik.

Forlagets egen omtale:

King’s Indian Warfare is a practical guide to the most dynamic and ambitious defence against 1.d4. Learn to play the King’s Indian like a world-class attacker from a life-long expert.

Smirin annotates his best games in the King’s Indian, explaining his successes, including his mini-match of four games over a decade against former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, which Smirin won 2½–1½.

From sacrificial feasts to positional masterclasses, this book has it all.

Grandmaster Ilya Smirin is a three-time Israeli Champion, with a peak rating over 2700 and probably the most creative grandmaster of his generation.

Fra forfatterens innledning i boka:

In this book I would like to present my best King’s Indian Defence games and in the process share with the reader my views on this complex and double-edged opening.

The King’s Indian Defence is one of the most fascinating openings in chess. It involves everything I love about the game: risk-taking, attacking, exchanging weaknesses or material for dynamic
chances, clever tactics, surprising turnarounds and a deep sense of possibility.

Many outstanding chess players played the King’s Indian Defence throughout their whole careers. It is enough to mention just a few names (in chronological order): David Bronstein, Efim Geller, Mikhail Tal, Leonid Stein, Robert Fischer, Garry Kasparov. In modern days the King’s Indian
Defence is the main (and successful) opening in the games of Teimour Radjabov, and it is also played by Hikaru Nakamura, Alexander Grischuk and various other top players.

I have been a great lover of the King’s Indian Defence from the very beginning of my chess life – that’s over 30 years now. It is my favourite opening, so when I chatted to Jacob Aagaard after our game at the 2011 European Team Championship, and he asked if I had ever thought about writing a book, I felt attracted to share my love for and experience in handling this exciting
opening.

What I want to achieve with this book is to give the reader a course in playing the King’s Indian, which in turn will also be a course in playing dynamic chess. Every chapter will be structured in the following way:

• A few positions from the games in the chapter for the reader to solve

• General introduction to the topic; for example, tactics typical of the King’s Indian

• Some of my own games that are relevant to the topic

The basic idea is to explain the topic in a simple (yet hopefully not simplistic) way and then
show how the concepts showed up in my games, which were played at a high grandmaster level. I would implore the reader to be realistic when trying to solve the positions from the games.
My intention is to help you broaden your mind and improve your imagination.

I decided quite deliberately to have 49 main games in this book. I could easily have made it 50, of course, but I like the number 49 for several reasons. 7x7 is one of them, but there is also the feeling of incompletion. Or in other words: I am leaving room for more. And it is certainly my goal to add to this collection of memorable King’s Indian games in the years to come. I hope this book will help the reader to play better chess, and inspire more players to take up this fascinating opening.

Ilya Smirin, Kfar Sava, August 2016