Customer Reviews

King's Indian Battle Plans

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This review exists to balance what I feel is an unfair assessment given by (what is at this time) the only other review written so far.

Do NOT buy this as your first KID book, hoping to build a repertoire with the material in here. This is not -- and was never designed to be -- that kind of book. Measuring its value based on that criterion is missing the point.

What this book IS, is a rich, annotated collection of KID games written to give the learning KID player (anyone below master level) a way to play through and learn from hundreds of master-class games. This is in the rich tradition of works such as Wolfgang Uhlmann's "Winning with the French." Nobody would use that book as a repertoire guide for the French -- the theory is out of date, and the material is not organized for easy reference. But somebody who already owns, say, Watson's excellent "Play the French" would jump ahead by leaps and bounds if he played dedicatedly through all Uhlmann's example games. The overall strategies, typical formations, and frequently repeated tactical motifs shine through like a beacon. THAT, rather than cutting-edge theory, is EXACTLY what the class-level player needs to learn in order to begin to outclass his opponents at the club or online.

So, back on the KID front, if you've already got (or have plans to acquire) something like Gallagher's "Play the King's Indian," then having this book as a supplementary tool for study will skyrocket your ability to learn the ins and outs of the defense.

That's what game collections are for, and where printed game collections dedicated specifically to the KID are concerned, this one is best of breed.

If you are looking for a tutorial on king's indian tipical plans, this is the wrong book.
What you get is a collection of some 240 annotated games, grouped in chapters according to the informator classification. Every game contains an idea, but there is no advice on state of the art (back in 2004) for that line.
The book design is quite poor, games moves are not visually apart from the comments (yes they are written in bold, but difficult to distinguish from the rest).
There is a rich bibliography, but not a variation table.
Compared with books like "Play The King's Indian", by Gallagher, or "Play the Nimzoindian", by Deering this book is a waste of paper.

I am often surprised by the prices sellers charge for books they sell through Amazon. I actually just picked this up through ChessCafe for its cover price and I think Bob Long has some copies still, so don't waste your money. And it really is not an indispensable book by any means. Yes, it is an excellent games collection with interesting annotations, sort of in the spirit of the old Macmillan chess library series of "New Ideas in the" X Opening. There are some interesting ideas here for both White and Black and some interesting games. I like the spirit of Martin's approach, covering both sides. But it is nowhere near being a repertoire and is clearly not designed to be a complete coverage of the King's Indian. Honestly, I was a little disappointed by it, since it is not only touted in reviews but frequently mentioned by friends of mine as among their favorite KID books. I think Joe Gallagher's Play the King's Indian or books by Golubev or Bologan are really much more worth having. But if you are looking for some interesting games and ideas off the beaten path, this is definitely worth having. But if you have a choice between this book and the many other excellent KID books out there, and if money is an issue, think twice. It's not worth the current price.