Starting Out: The King's Indian [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I found this introduction to the King's Indian to be excellent. I do not ordinarily play the King's Indian, so I can't compare really say if the variations were complete or not, but I feel much more comfortable with the general ideas of the KI now than I was before I read the book.

I'm very rapidly becoming a fan of the starting out: series from everyman, and can't recommend them highly enough for someone who wants a very broad overview of an opening. Once you find what you like, you can get more specialized opening books. Drawbacks? The main one is the lack of a variation index. I'd place level of book to be in the 1200-1600 range, but really suitable for anyone who wants an overview of the main ideas behind the principle variations.

Joe Gallagher's book Starting Out: The Kings Indian Defense, is a marvelous openings book for beginners and intermediate players alike. Gallagher focuses on the important things like the ideas behind the moves, the strategies, the tactical ideas that develop in the various structures and variations of the KID.

The KID is one of the most important defenses in chess, and has been played by many great champions including Kasparov and Fischer. Fischer in fact used it exclusively throughout his chess career. The KID offers black a fighting chance for more than a draw against d4, and is flexible enough to be used against many other non e4 openings.

GM Gallagher presents the newest lines in a clear manner, He offers suggestions as to what variation might be best for you the reader. He provides invaluable tips and warnings throughout the book. The first 4 chapters are on the Classical Variation. He follows that with a chapter each on the Samisch, Fianchetto, Four Pawns, and Averbakh variations. The last two chapters are devoted to white's early h2-3, and "other" systems.

While this book is not meant to be a thorough treatist on the KID, it is an excellent starting place, and allows the reader to begin playing the KID well, quickly. This book is supposed to be a beginners guide to the KID, not a beginners guide to opening a chess game. However, a beginner would do well to jump into this book and this defense quickly after blitzing through a good beginners book like Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals.

Everyman's Starting Out series looks like a good one. I love this book and have since ordered Starting Out: The Caro Kann also by Joe Gallagher (Since I also play the Caro, and have for years), and have recently ordered Starting Out: The Sicilian by John Emms since I am searching for a more aggresive defense to e4 to complement my d4 KID repertiore.

In closing, I highly recommend this book, and suggest following it up with Mastering the Kings Indian Defense By Robert Bellin and Pietro Ponzetto. After that plnge into more complicated theory based works if you desire more, but thoses two volumes alone should serve you well for a long time, and help make you a dangerous player verses d4.

While this book does, as other reviewers note, explain the ideas of the King's Indian in an accessible way, the author clearly has no idea of the conditions under which club players play openings. He suffers from "masteritis"--the tendency to write books for amateurs by dumbing down the advice the author would give to other masters, as if amateurs were just weaker players who competed in master tournaments. This disconnect is all too common in chess books, few of which would be published if most of their readers weren't below 2000 (there just aren't enough stronger players to pay the publisher's bills). It's ESPECIALLY problematic in a book from the STARTING OUT series, specifically targetted to low to middle level players.

Gallagher repeatedly cites the statistical results produced by a particular line--a notoriously unreliable method even for masters, as he himself tacitly admits by sometimes commenting that the poor results for Black were just because the players didn't know how to handle it. It has even less relevance for club players, in whose games dynamic factors are much more important than static endgame advantages. If somebody compiled opening statistics based on amateur play, I doubt they would resemble the ones at master level.

Besides statistical success, Gallagher's main criterion for the importance of a move is fashionability. There's a good one. Why should you take this line more seriously when you are a C or B player playing another C or B player? Because a lot of IM's and GM's have played it lately; it's the latest thing; it's just so a la mode. That's not even a good reason to play it if you ARE a GM. Other things being equal, sound but unfashionable lines are more advantageous because your opponents are less likely to be booked up and well practiced against them.

But at the amateur level, it's just plain irrelevant. You are lucky if your opponents even play the moves that lead to the "main line" 20% of the time. And when they do, the latest refinements in master play will be of little use to you, because both of you will probably almost immediately play much worse errors than the slightly weaker moves the latest theory prides itself on rejecting. And nevertheless, one of you will win! That's nothing to be ashamed of; it's why chess is fun at ANY level.

At one point, Gallagher remarks that a particular line in the Four Pawns Attack is so theoretical you must "burn the midnight oil"--in other words, spend long hours memorizing many variations. This is rarely if ever good advice for players below 1800. You'd be better off spending your time drilling tactics, for example, or practicing PLAYING the opening in speed games.

To summarize: this book is intended for people who have to face the rigors and fashions of master tournaments, who want to play or play against the King's Indian Defense, but who don't know even the basic theory of that opening. With the possible exception of ten year old phenoms, there IS nobody like that.