Robert Ris’ Fast and Furious: Fighting the King's Indian with 3.h4!?

by Robert Ris
7/29/2021 – This week, well-known Dutch trainer Robert Ris takes a look at Sam Shankland's spectacular victory against Peter Svidler at the World Cup. After 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 Shankland played 3.h4!?, a move that discourages Black from playing the Grunfeld. Svidler tried a King's Indian setup instead but without much success. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.
Pattern recognition is an important tool in modern chess, as it helps you to understand better the characteristics of a position. Particularly when you have been confronted with a surprise opening system played by your opponent, it helps when you can just

Svidler recently faced 3.h4 in the Paris leg of the Grand Chess Tour against Richard Rapport, but lost in 18 moves as his Benko-Gambit approach didn't work out well.

This time Svidler opted for the King's Indian setup, but Sam came well prepared and even though objectively speaking his position wasn't better at all, the American seemed to fare better in the complex middlegame and duly punished one bad blunder of his opponent.

Exercise: Thanks to a powerful sequence of moves White is able to win by force. Do you see his idea?

 
B. Adhiban - N. Delgado Ramirez

You can move the pieces on the live diagram!

This week’s show

Watch previous shows

Recent shows

Many more Fast and Furious episodes are available in ChessBase Videos

Links

Robert is an International Master who mostly spends his time training and coaching talented youngsters. On the PlayChess server The Fast and the Furious is a popular show where he explains sharp opening lines for a wider audience. He is also a well-known ChessBase author who produced numerous DVDs and regularly contributes to ChessBase Magazine as well. Since 2015 he is the organizer of the Dutch Rapid Championships in his home town Amstelveen. He has started a YouTube channel with chess analysis as well.

Discuss

Rules for reader comments

 
 

Not registered yet? Register

We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, analysis cookies and marketing cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies. Here you can make detailed settings or revoke your consent (if necessary partially) with effect for the future. Further information can be found in our data protection declaration.