Reviews for Play the King's Indian: A Complete Repertoire for Black in This Most Dynamic of Openings

The average rating for Play the King's Indian: A Complete Repertoire for Black in This Most Dynamic of Openings based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-10-31 00:00:00 Stephen Bowler As mentioned in another review, Joe Gallagher is one of the very best chess writers today imho and this book only reinforces that opinion. Gallagher is an internationally-known KID expert and this is a book that gives you plenty of analysis and explaination of the various lines. The ins-and-outs are all here and while this is a great book and should be one of your main books, it is not for a beginner. Pick up "Starting Out: The King's Indian" by Gallagher. Your next step once you've mastered that will be this book. By the way, both this book and Starting Out are published by Everyman Chess (formerly Cadogan Chess for you other old-timers out there) and I believe they are the best overall chess publishing house running today, bare none. Their "Starting Out" series has no peer in chess books and it is the place to start for any opening or strategy area a player who has mastered the basics should attempt next. A player should be well-acquainted and comfortable with all the moves and special rules of chess and should have mastered a basic opening (such as the Italian Game) and be able to solve beginner level chess problems without a problem (two-moves-to-check type puzzles on a lower difficulty level). These books go into actual openings and are usually not for the non-tournament beginners. Everyman also has crisp and clear printing (you don't want blurry or 'jagged' edges to print when you're staring at columns of small numbers for hours on end) on high-quality paper that does not reflect the light you're using, again, helping you to sidestep eyestrain after staring at columns of chess notation for hours. The books are well-made and will take the typical chess-usage abuse (one-handed, flattened out on a table next to a chess board) and not fall apart so you're having to scramble to fetch loose pages. They also have very good diagrams, tree-breakouts of the various lines in a back section, and complete games rather than small chunks which will give you many of the common middle game positions. Many of the 'older' books as well are still very appropriate and the 'Starting Out' series will be appropriate still for years to come. The book reviewed here is from 2004 and yet anyone but those in top tournaments would need a more updated one. Frankly, all they would need is this book and an update to their games database for the absolute latest lines that are popular. I'm guessing that doesn't include many of us here at goodreads.com ... if you're playing correspondence chess over at chess.com however, these books will be fine despite their publication date.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-06-02 00:00:00 Margaret Hamer Short version: A fantastic beginner's guide on how to approach learning chess past how the pieces move. Long version: Yasser breaks down the basics in terms of: Force/material. - The value of the pieces, their main strengths/weaknesses and therefore when a trade of pieces is favourable. Time. - How to mobilise your pieces efficiently and avoid situations where your opponent may force you to waste time. Space. - How to evaluate how much room you have to manoeuvre your pieces, and what to do if you are ahead, or behind, in terms of space. Pawn structure - How pawns build the backbone of chess and how to use them to control the battlefield, including how to avoid weaknesses in the structure of your pawns. Finally, Yasser ends with several annotated games, explaining the reasoning behind each move in terms of Force, Time, Space and Pawn structure, allowing the reader to get a grasp of how to analyse their games, and learn from their mistakes. A wonderful read for any aspiring chess player.