Controversial Samisch King's Indian [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I could not agree more with the introductory comments by Christian Hoethe in his review of Play the Queen's Gambit: "British grandmaster Chris Ward is known for the quality of his books. His works about the Sicilian Dragon are outstanding, full of ideas and inspiration. His books about the Nimzo-Indian, especially about the "Kasparov-Variation", are good to very good - for one simple reason: Ward practises what he preaches and knows his stuff! As a reader of his books, you can be sure to have an expert at your side guiding you along. And - unlike just too many other authors - he does not shy away from giving away secrets that other grandmasters would have kept their own. Ward truly knows the Queen's Gambit!"

Having recently purchased all of the above in order to develop an aggressive, slightly offbeat 1 d4 repertoire (as applied by Chris Ward, a renowned 1 d4 expert), I can confirm that the aforementioned comments are also true of his book on the Samisch King's Indian...

I could only find two "negatives", which many club players may regard as positives! Firstly: there is no bibliography, but this is partly negated by the fact that Ward is a lifelong practitioner with vast personal experience in this variation, the same therefore constituting his main source of information given the countless references to his own games (including nine of the thirty five illustrative games). Secondly: the games format is preferred to the tree format, making it slightly harder to find a line, although a three page index assists the reader in this regard.

From the first chapter (7 pages): "I'm not here to prove to you why the Samisch wins for White but as my own interest lies with the first player, it is obviously written with King's Indian bashing in mind! Clearly my predominant selection of White wins suggests that I haven't adopted an entirely unbiased approach(!). Nevertheless whilst covering all the main variations of the Samisch (but not every single line), I do suggest to Black players where their best chances lie. By frequently referring to my own experiences, I wanted this book to trace the development of the opening over time, while tendering reasons for the shifts in emphasis. I also wanted to throw in ideas that will be relevant to both parties and provide food for thought in the future."

In my opinion Ward achieved these goals remarkably well, and in every respect. Starting with Black's traditional 6...e5 he provides two different White approaches, namely 7 d5 (chapter 2: 42 pages) and 7 Nge2 (chapter 3: 27 pages). This is followed by 6...Nbd7 (chapter 4: 20 pages), 6...a5/b6/c6 (chapter 5: 24 pages), the Panno with 6...Nc6 (chapter 6: 22 pages), and the critical 6...c5 (chapter 7: 26 pages). In the latter he first looks at accepting the gambit, before turning to different ways of declining it. There follows alternate ways to avoid this critical gambit by 6 Nge2 (chapter 8: 18 pages) and 6 Bg5 (chapter 9: 20 pages), which can transpose to earlier chapters as appropriately referred to in the text. The tenth and final chapter deals with odds and ends (8 pages) and provides ample food for thought for both players in some earlier deviations. I have not run a search on my database to verify this conclusively, but certainly from Ward's games contained in this book it seems as if he gradually started giving preference to the 6 Nge2 (chapter 8) move-order over the traditional 6 Be3 (chapters 2-7), probably in recognition of the gambit's virtues (chapter 7). This is surely the result of the opening's development and some shifts in emphasis, following the "discovery" of the gambit (compare his remarks in the previous paragraph). If you are happy to attempt grinding out a win in a long ending, by all means accept the gambit and exchange queens. But if you prefer the traditional Samisch setup, declining the gambit or avoiding it altogether would be advisable. Either way, Ward does not leave you short of options, and this is also typical of his approach in the less critical variations.

I strongly recommend this book, especially for the White player in search of an ideas based guide to the complex and versatile Samisch King's Indian.