Tuesday, September 20, 2005

A Challenge to the Anti-Saemisch KID?


Black to play and win after 34.Rg4?

FM Steve Stoyko was discussing the King's Indian Defense with one of the members of the club last week. I asked him what he suggested playing against the Saemisch Variation, and he replied, "No one plays the Saemisch these days because of the following gambit..." and he showed us the line that goes 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. f3 O-O 6. Be3 c5 7. dxc5 dxc5 8. Qxd8 Rxd8 9. Bxc5 Nc6 with compensation for the pawn.

Wouldn't you know it, but in Sunday's New York Times Chess Column, Robert Byrne annotates the game Bischoff-Radjabov, Mainz 2005, from the Ordix Open, which began exactly this way, only White declined the gambit with 7.Nge2. Black got a good game and a clear initiative on the kingside. Interested in finding out more about the gambit, I looked at some games online and found an interesting one from the recent European Team Championship featuring KID author GM Joe Gallagher as Black against Frode Elsness's strong home preparation. It was quite a struggle for Black to hold his own a pawn down through most of the ending and if it were not for a series of weak moves near the end of the game White surely should have won.

I do not think this is the line for me against the Saemisch, unless Steve can help me improve over Gallagher's play!

You can play over both of these games online or download the PGN file.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home