Customer Reviews

Starting Out: King's Indian (Starting Out - Everyman Chess)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found this introduction to the King's Indian to be excellent. I do not ordinarily play the King's Indian, so I can't compare really say if the variations were complete or not, but I feel much more comfortable with the general ideas of the KI now than I was before I read the book.

I'm very rapidly becoming a fan of the starting out: series from everyman, and can't recommend them highly enough for someone who wants a very broad overview of an opening. Once you find what you like, you can get more specialized opening books. Drawbacks? The main one is the lack of a variation index. I'd place level of book to be in the 1200-1600 range, but really suitable for anyone who wants an overview of the main ideas behind the principle variations.

Joe Gallagher's book Starting Out: The Kings Indian Defense, is a marvelous openings book for beginners and intermediate players alike. Gallagher focuses on the important things like the ideas behind the moves, the strategies, the tactical ideas that develop in the various structures and variations of the KID.

The KID is one of the most important defenses in chess, and has been played by many great champions including Kasparov and Fischer. Fischer in fact used it exclusively throughout his chess career. The KID offers black a fighting chance for more than a draw against d4, and is flexible enough to be used against many other non e4 openings.

GM Gallagher presents the newest lines in a clear manner, He offers suggestions as to what variation might be best for you the reader. He provides invaluable tips and warnings throughout the book. The first 4 chapters are on the Classical Variation. He follows that with a chapter each on the Samisch, Fianchetto, Four Pawns, and Averbakh variations. The last two chapters are devoted to white's early h2-3, and "other" systems.

While this book is not meant to be a thorough treatist on the KID, it is an excellent starting place, and allows the reader to begin playing the KID well, quickly. This book is supposed to be a beginners guide to the KID, not a beginners guide to opening a chess game. However, a beginner would do well to jump into this book and this defense quickly after blitzing through a good beginners book like Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals.

Everyman's Starting Out series looks like a good one. I love this book and have since ordered Starting Out: The Caro Kann also by Joe Gallagher (Since I also play the Caro, and have for years), and have recently ordered Starting Out: The Sicilian by John Emms since I am searching for a more aggresive defense to e4 to complement my d4 KID repertiore.

In closing, I highly recommend this book, and suggest following it up with Mastering the Kings Indian Defense By Robert Bellin and Pietro Ponzetto. After that plnge into more complicated theory based works if you desire more, but thoses two volumes alone should serve you well for a long time, and help make you a dangerous player verses d4.

While this book does, as other reviewers note, explain the ideas of the King's Indian in an accessible way, the author clearly has no idea of the conditions under which club players play openings. He suffers from "masteritis"--the tendency to write books for amateurs by dumbing down the advice the author would give to other masters, as if amateurs were just weaker players who competed in master tournaments. This disconnect is all too common in chess books, few of which would be published if most of their readers weren't below 2000 (there just aren't enough stronger players to pay the publisher's bills). It's ESPECIALLY problematic in a book from the STARTING OUT series, specifically targetted to low to middle level players.

Gallagher repeatedly cites the statistical results produced by a particular line--a notoriously unreliable method even for masters, as he himself tacitly admits by sometimes commenting that the poor results for Black were just because the players didn't know how to handle it. It has even less relevance for club players, in whose games dynamic factors are much more important than static endgame advantages. If somebody compiled opening statistics based on amateur play, I doubt they would resemble the ones at master level.

Besides statistical success, Gallagher's main criterion for the importance of a move is fashionability. There's a good one. Why should you take this line more seriously when you are a C or B player playing another C or B player? Because a lot of IM's and GM's have played it lately; it's the latest thing; it's just so a la mode. That's not even a good reason to play it if you ARE a GM. Other things being equal, sound but unfashionable lines are more advantageous because your opponents are less likely to be booked up and well practiced against them.

But at the amateur level, it's just plain irrelevant. You are lucky if your opponents even play the moves that lead to the "main line" 20% of the time. And when they do, the latest refinements in master play will be of little use to you, because both of you will probably almost immediately play much worse errors than the slightly weaker moves the latest theory prides itself on rejecting. And nevertheless, one of you will win! That's nothing to be ashamed of; it's why chess is fun at ANY level.

At one point, Gallagher remarks that a particular line in the Four Pawns Attack is so theoretical you must "burn the midnight oil"--in other words, spend long hours memorizing many variations. This is rarely if ever good advice for players below 1800. You'd be better off spending your time drilling tactics, for example, or practicing PLAYING the opening in speed games.

To summarize: this book is intended for people who have to face the rigors and fashions of master tournaments, who want to play or play against the King's Indian Defense, but who don't know even the basic theory of that opening. With the possible exception of ten year old phenoms, there IS nobody like that.

Most players, until they are rated at least 1800 (US) , should only own a general chess opening reference book (MCO, NCO) to use as a reference. Such players would be better studying the middle and endgames.

This book is a most notable exception. It covers the King's Indian Defense. It is written clearly; with sections on the different subvariations; generously annotated in *words*. This is exactly the sort of thing any player, but especially a beginner, intermediate, or club player, needs to read.

After these sections comes a game or two, lightly annotated. No need to bombard the reader at this point. Just show him what a typical game in the variation looks like, with pithy notes so as not to overwhelm the reader.

Gallagher has written on this defense before so he's an expert on it. This is an added bonus for the reader. It is written lucidly.

More advanced players could use this book as a supplement to more specialized tomes. Less experienced players could read this for their own enjoyment, or with the goal in mind of learning the opening, and/or with the idea to buy specialized books on the variations covered in this book.

This book was exactly what I was looking for to understand the KID and enjoy at the same time reading. The book is layed out where he explains the ideas of the variations to about move 12 and then stops to give you statistics and amount of theory and then gives about 2 or 3 games, and later in the chapter goes over some subvariations that can arise. Gallagher explains the ideas of the opening that I never understood in a simple manner. But this book isn't as simple and beginner-ish as it may sound. For instance, I have been playing chess fairly regularly for the past 4 years (but never really played the KID) and I have learned a great deal from this book! It is for players who look through MCO or NCO and don't get why Black (or White) makes this or that move and/or just don't understand the plan Black or White has in mind. The KID is complicated and easy to get lost in, and if you don't have some primer to understand each variation to a descent degree as this book gives you then moving on to more advanced KID books will be a waste of money and a headache. Anyone can get something out of this book, especially if they have a good working knowledge of chess like what you would find in Reaccess your Chess for example (great book too!!). So if don't like playing passive defence as black and like aggresive/counterattack play, then buy this book and learn the KID.

I liked this book a lot.I am somewhere between beginner to intermidiate level and I have learned most of my chess by following championship games online. Reading this book allowed me to understand the concepts behind this opening very clearly and in a normal laymans terms. This book just proved to be a perfect one for me to understand KID, when I used to play it without knowing it really well or not understanding what I am doing :) The focus in the book is incredible. All the main lines are covered and unlike other books which go on listing all sorts of variations under main line making it difficult to digest with cryptic analysis, here author never loses the focus. He tells main concepts behind particular move orders in the main line, stops at a point where variations may occur, tells you the possible important variations, and then continues with the main line by giving examples of games and then adding his comments in between of moves making sure that he gives enough details to make one understand. Then he deals with important variations one at a time individually in separate sections in similar manner making it very easy to follow.
May be not a perfect book for a professional or someone who expects entire reportire of KID. Its not meant for that either. But a great way to START ON with.
Only one reason why I have put 4 stars is - one, amazon wouldnt allow me to put 4 and half and two, I was expecting 2/3 important games in KID played between kramnik and kasparov. Author does mention them but it would have been great to see analysis of those in this here.
In all a great book to start with.

This was the first Opening book on a specific opening that I have ever read, and I am very happy both with the information in the book and the writing style of the author.

If you are just "Starting Out" with the King's Indian I do believe that this book is a great way to begin. The explanatory prose is well written and holds your attention. There are enough variations for the reader to understand various positions, but not so many variations that the newer player would get lost in a sea of algebraic craziness!

Much of the instruction comes from the annotated games peppered throughout each section. Gallagher does a great job of not just using games where black wins with the King's Indian. There are many losses and draws for the person playing the black pieces in this book.

I know that some people complain about the Starting Out series and granted at this point I have only read this and the Colle installment of the series, but I think these are great books for a person wanting to explore a new opening. For what it is worth, it seems to me that people expect these books to automatically make them a master at whatever opening is being discussed. That is not the point of the books. They are meant to start a person out down the path of understanding that opening. The player then has to practice that opening, analyze games featuring that opening and eventually explore books that delve deeper into the opening in question. That is what I have done. After finishing this book I have spent the next 3 months practicing the King's Indian against Shredder and analyzing master games where black wins AND loses with the King's Indian. I have used Gallagher's book as a reference for my analysis.

I highly recommend this book if you want to begin to understand and play the King's Indian!

Starting Out the King's Indian (SOKID) by Joseph Gallagher is one of the best opening books I have read. The style is especially lucid and Gallagher's game analysis is both accurate and instructive on how to play chess in general. The chapters are clearly organized and Gallagher analyzes the most important games for each variation of the KID. As this is an intro versus a full repetoire book, the focus is more on the concepts behind the variations of the KID rather than detailed examination of each variation. I highly recommend the book for anyone in the range of D class to B class who would like to learn or more fully unterstand one the most important openings.

I just wanted to add that this book really is very close to a repertoire book for Black. Or better, the introduction to a repertoire for Black since, as in all the Starting Out books, you are given the basic ideas behind most of the variations in the opening. Many of the books in this series are more balanced. This does not detract from the quality of Gallagher's writing, which is better than average, however, and I did learn a few things that helped me as White, but after a while the Black emphasis got in the way. Recommended -- especially for players of the Black pieces.

but i hate how the book is structured, i have readen much better books. its not that i say the analysis is bad, its just how the book is structured in a way to make it really bad to digest, if you have no prior knowledge of it. i dont say you cant learn it, but with his style it takes like 10 times longer.