Beating the King’s Indian and Grunfeld

The trend towards more and more specialization in opening books continues. Witness Los Angeles IM Tim Taylor’s latest offering: BEATING THE KING’S INDIAN AND GRUNFELD. Not too long ago one could find a complete opening repertoire based on 1.e4 or 1.d4 in a single volume. Now things have become more specialized and only a couple defenses are put under the microscope.

In BEATING THE FIANCHETTO DEFENCES (Gambit 2006) by GM Grivas, the answers to the KID and Grunfeld were 5.Nf3/6.h3 and 4.Nf3/5.Bg5 respectively. Taylor has different ideas and offers the reader two choices against each defense. To fight the King’s Indian he advocates the Four Pawns Attack but with a twist. After 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.e4 d6 5.Be2 0-0 6.f4 c5 he advocates the favorite of the late Wisconsin IM William Martz 7.Nf3 which often leads to Maroczy Bind type structures. As an alternative he offers 7.d5 e6 8.0-0 exd5 and now instead of the mainline 9.cxd5 he likes the less fashionable 9.exd5.

The desire to stay away from fashionable lines also guides Taylor’s thinking behind his two anti-Grunfeld recommendations: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.e3 Bg7 5.Qb3 (the Knezevic Variation) and 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.cxd5 Nxd5 6.e3 0-0 7.Bc4 (the Keres Variation). Taylor uses 53 well-annotated games to make his case.

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