I’m not really the type who’d buy or read a lot of chess books. Nor am I one of those chess scholar types who seem to just have an incessant craving for chess theory (especially opening theory) knowledge.

But in my continuing hope to better understand the KID and making it my main, if not exclusive, weapon against 1. d4, I took a punt on buying Ukrainian GM Mikhail Golubev’s fairly expensive (by my stingy standard, that is) “Understanding the King’s Indian” (Gambit, 2006).

I don’t know if it’s only because I have a specific yearning to learn KID theory, but I found the book to be the best chess book that I have ever owned (I’ve had less than ten, so that doesn’t really say much). Mind you, I have only really fully read the first chapter and skimmed through the rest of its 200+ pages. So what makes me so confident about making “the best chess book that I have ever owned” proclamation so early?

First of all is the unpretentiousness of the author. In his introduction, Golubev immediately laid bare the fact that the KID is an opening that concedes various objective advantages to white and is difficult to play as black: “There are grandmasters (even those who often use the King’s Indian as Black), who have the opinion that with perfect play White should win.” How many opening books have you read or worse, purchased, where the author(s) message is pretty much “white/black to play and win”? 

Secondly, I like the author’s modesty. Again, as early as the introduction, Golubev provided a list of KID experts that is pretty much a veritable who’s who list: Kasparov, Fischer, Tal, Petrosian, Polgar, Bronstein, Najdorf, Gligoric, Nunn, Radjabov. Then he goes: “Although according to the statistics I am among the 30 most active GM practitioners of the KI…it would seem strange to place my name alongside…the great KI experts.” You’d further understand that the book is not about self-aggrandisement when Golubev’s first and last illustrative games are two of his own losses with the KID (he provides a total of 56 of his own games as illustrations, only 25 of which ended in wins).

Finally, there’s the overall teaching tone of the book. One gets the sense that Golubev genuinely wants to impart his knowledge of the opening, and he does this in a way that is both instructive and easy to understand. My impression is the book is targeted towards intermediate level players or higher, but the book is so fluidly written that even 1500 players like me will find it very patzer friendly and, indeed, quite useful and insightful.

So at least now I have a bit more understanding of what I’ve been doing wrong with my KID (6. Bd3 is strategically wrong because of 6… Bg4, putting pressure on d4 with the intended 7… Nc6; and an early d5 move by white can be easily met by either Na6 or a5).

You can read a “more professional” review of the book here.