Let’s learn the King’s Indian Defense! My chess coach always told me: control the center, develop your pieces, castle early. But let’s be real—that’s soooo basic. In this opening, we flip the script. First, we rush to castle, willingly give up the center, and only then do we strike back with our pawns. This leads to extremely fun games when White plays d4. Step 1: knight to f6.
There's about a million different moves White could have played here. For us, it doesn't really matter. We're going to play the same 5-or-so starting moves no matter what: First, pawn to g6 to make space for our bishop.
One last piece to develop before we can castle! Bishop to g7.
Alright, when White plays e4, they’re threatening to push e5 next move and go after our knight—which is kinda scary. So before we castle, there’s one last step: we play pawn to d6 to stop white from advancing any further with their e-pawn. WHENEVER White plays pawn to e4, we MUST play pawn to d6.
OK, we can finally castle. Woohoo. Step one of the King's Indian Defense is complete.
A key idea in the KID is to attack the d4 pawn. White made a mistake here by bringing the bishop to d3 - they now block the queen from defending that pawn. We'll use this to our advantage. First: bishop to g4 pinning the knight to the queen, removing a defender of that d4 pawn.
Let's trade with the knight. Bishop takes on f3.
Now we execute our trap: Knight to c6, targeting the now undefended d4 pawn.
White added a defender to the d4 pawn, let's add an attacker. Knight to d7 opens up our bishop to the square.
That move just lost White the game. No, seriously, the position went from equal to a +4 point advantage for us. The winning move: Moving our d7 knight to e5, forking the queen and bishop.
Oh no! They captured our knight, ending our fork! Nope. We can go knight to e5 AGAIN, renewing the very same fork. And this time, there is no pawn capture.
Now to win our material back: Knight takes the undefended bishop on d3 with check.
We are FEASTING. Knight takes the b2 pawn next.
Well done! The game is essentially over.
The point of the KID is to give white the center, then fight back after we castle our king. We can fight back with two possible pawn-breaks: pawn to c5 or pawn to e5. In THIS position, it's best to go pawn to e5. Yes, you'll have to memorize a couple of these things but, hey, what are you on this website for anyways?
White ignored our pawn break and just castled. Well, let's do something they can't ignore: pawn takes on d4.
Let's put our rook on e8, so it can stare down at the e4 pawn. We have two attackers on the e4 pawn, so White will have to defend. See how we're taking control of the game now?
White defended their pawn, but in doing so they just opening up a diagonal line of sight to their king. Yikes. Let's take advantage of this and play pawn to c6, hoping to play queen to b6 on the next move to pin the knight to the king. The other idea with our pawn to c6 move is we are setting up pawn to d5 in the future to smash open the center.
And THIS was the wrong response from white. They defended that diagonal to the king, sure, but their bishop is undefended and remember: our rook is staring down the e-file. If we smash open the center now, odds are we can take that undefended bishop after some pawn captures. Pawn to d5.
Remember how blacks's dark-squared bishop is undefended behind that e-pawn? Well now we have the awesome sacrifice Knight takes d5. We're taking advantage that White cannot capture back because otherwise our rook takes their bishop.
White backed up, telling us: Hey, let's slow things down a little. Our response: No. Let's go knight to f4, attacking the OTHER bishop.
White keeps running their bishops away, but they're missing the bigger picture. Queen to g5, threatening checkmate in 1! White has to be careful or they'll lose their king very very quickly.
Remember how a long time ago, White opening up a diagonal to their king, and we wanted to pin the knight to the king with our queen? Well - with the bishop no longer controlling that diagonal, we finally can. Queen to c5!
Well done! We left our knight to die, but we are completely winning here because we'll actually get TWO pieces back. In our next moves, we'll take the knight on d4 with our bishop with check, then proceed to take the c4 bishop. Because we end a piece up, the computer gives us a +3 point advantage.
White captured our pawn - now we capture back. Pawn takes e5.
Rook takes back, of course. Rook to d8.
It looks like we just lost a pawn, but we have an easy way to win one back. Knight takes on e4 "sacrificing" our knight but now our bishop stares at their knight.
White tried a "Desperado" (in chess it means they know they're losing material, so they're desperate). With our rook under attack we only have one choice... Bishop takes knight on c3 with check.
Now we get the knight for free. King takes on f7.
Well done!! We are simply up a piece and will win this game.
White is playing the "Four Pawns Attack". The name is a bit on the nose, but the threat is very real. White has taken the entire center and has full control over the middle of the board... for now. If we play this right, White will lose because they overextended and have too many weak squares. First things first, lets castle.
Time to take back the center. Pawn to c5.
White wants a stable center, we don't. Remember, its WHITE's king thats still in the middle of the board. Let's try another pawn break pawn to e6.
Let's open up the center. Pawn to d5.
Here, let's play pawn to b5, completely taking all the queenside space. Yes - if you're paying attention - we are sacrificing the b-pawn with that move.
With the knight no longer defending the e4 pawn, lets add an attacker to it. Rook to e8. This also creates a pin on the king that will come in handy very soon.
White returned the knight to defend the e4 pawn, but let's capture the pawn anyways. Knight to e4.
It looks like we just lost a piece, but we have one move here that wins it back. Pawn to f5, attacking the pinned knight.
Not only will we win our material back, this position is very hard to hold on to as White. In fact, we're winning from here like 75% of the time, and the computer gives us a big advantage.
White marches on! Here, capture with pawn to e5.
Now we drop our knight back to d7 to add a ton of pressure to the e5 pawn. On the next move, we'll try to destabilize white's position even further.
Now to destabilize the center: pawn to c5.
With our king safe and White's king in the middle of the board, clearing out the center can only help us. Pawn takes on d4.
Oh no - White's position is a disaster. Now we have the simple but deadly knight to c6 hitting the e5 pawn and the bishop.
Let's chop, chop, chop. Knight takes bishop on d4.
Now knight takes pawn on e5.
Rook takes back on d8, of course.
Bishop takes back on e5.
Well done! We're in an endgame up a pawn, with a safer king, and more developed pieces. The computer gives us a +4 point advantage and we win here over 70% of the time.