one of the best setup openings to employ in chess as a beginner or an intermediate is
known as the king's indian setup which actually can be played with both sides
and it's a great tool to kind of get you going get you developed
and play the middle game from there so let's jump into it the king's indian setup looks like
this and it can be played in a variety of move orders but i recommend starting with the knight
and then let's just have our opponent develop naturally your next move is g3 and bishop g2 i'm
going to play normal moves as well then you castle and then you play d3 and d3 is designed as an
anti-e pawn move okay so the reason you can play d3 a little bit earlier like for example what
if i what if i played like this and i took the full center that's all right you need to not get
attacked that's why the pawn comes to d3 and then in a slightly different move order uh we reach
again our little shelter for the bishop the fianchetto and the castle with the king now
this this structure uh is is very very interesting and the next few developing moves especially if
you're first starting out you can finish your development in the following ways you've got to
commit this bishop so that will either happen on g5 and then make make this capture uh if you're
attacked but let's say you know your opponent does this and you can't bring the bishop out this way
then you can go b3 so something like h6 b3 you develop the bishop out this way and then
you can put this knight like this and all of this is setting up an eventual pawn push in the center
of the board either to e4 with your e pawn two squares or either with your c pawn you cannot
and i recommend that you do not do both because what will happen is you will block in your pieces
but i recommend that you choose one of the two uh so that you have some sort of command
in the center of the board uh and then you try to play from there now uh the king's indian is
very flexible it's very uh it's very tough to kind of predict exactly how our opponents are going to
set up but generally from here on out uh we are going to usually start to try to create an attack
on the same castled king what does that look like so for example um we'll play something like e4
right and if our opponent does something like this just hypothetically speaking we're gonna
try to create a kingside attack and usually that involves either moving the knight to h4
or back to e1 and i know it's like wait what why would i undevelop my pieces well now you want to
start some sort of f-pawn attack so something like f4 uh to then mobilize the forces that way
and that also can be played in the same regards with knight h4 so once you get kind of out there
uh playing with your pieces uh you're gonna start to learn the dynamics between the knights and the
bishops and how they work together now you don't necessarily have to uh play on the king side you
also could and employ a strategy excuse me of expanding on the queen side that's that's also
you know completely okay and completely reasonable but this is the king's indian setup with the white
side all right that's that's in three minutes congratulations you learned it um another way you
know if you don't like your pieces positioned in this way as i said uh you can develop your pieces
out like this make this trade and the reason why i say this is that this allows you to play your
knight out to c3 with pressure on d5 uh and then after castles again trying to put this pawn in the
center and it's okay for you to have your knight attacked you can swing your knight back and you're
looking for this aggressive f-pawn push you should remember this because once we flip the board here
in a moment this is exactly what you're going to get with the black pieces as well so let's flip
the board all right let's flip the board here we go the king's indian can be played oh excuse me
can be played against anything that white plays i'm gonna start out with with with e4 because
uh with e4 you actually do have to move the pawn first if you move the knight right away
you're just gonna get attacked you're in a totally different opening called the alakan defense this
is not what you want so with black i would say just play d6 first all right play d6 first
now this is not called the king's indian defense with black but it's the king's
indian setup it's called the pierce defense um and you should be familiar with white's two most
critical attacking methods there is the austrian attack the three pawn attack you will need to know
a weapon here of some sort and basically white just you know tries to get aggressive and blow you
off the board very quickly go look at a couple of videos or top-level games with the austrian attack
um it does not win for white it's just a little bit scary to play with the black pieces
uh and the other way that white can play very aggressively is bishop e3 queen d2 and basically
you know just go after your dark squared bishop so here when you see them setting up like this
i would delay castling and if they're trying to castle queenside i would maybe try to play a6 b5
or c6 b5 and start to kind of mobilize on that side of the board the opening is not designed for
you to absent-mindedly play your moves and not care about what your opponent is doing
you do need to pay attention to how they're setting up as well so in king spawn king's indian
positions or pierce defense positions be mindful of how they're setting up if they're not setting
up in one of these two ways they're just playing like this then the setup is the same bishop g7 uh
again that pawn is protecting the push so if it pushes you take it you always take it uh
they cannot push that early you know i've had i've seen i've seen stuff like this you know
i've seen move three take take take the queen all right like this is not good for white uh and if
they play normally and develop you're gonna do all the same stuff get this bishop out here the the
capture for the knight this knight develops in the center of the board and you play e5 all right now
sometimes they play d4 the setup is all the same d6 c4 you know this is and again there's a there
is opening theory here but i i and king's indian is one of the most deeply theoretically studied
openings that exists but i'm trying to give you the 10 minute rundown so forgive me if
i don't enter 30 moves of deep theory but for the amateur player for the 1500 level player the 1000
rated player these setups are just good ways to get started knight f3 let's say here and again
the bishop comes out and in many cases you know again you know you don't you don't
need to take this unless you get attacked so you can just keep developing and one way i
like to push this pawn into the center of the board is to also slide this knight back to d7
once the bishop is out you can slide the knight back you've got big pressure on the center and
you're looking for e5 f5 you're looking for the e and f pawn attack once the center is closed
you do not try to play f5 just by itself all right you need to play e5 close the center and then
get a same side attack going on your opponent and that's honestly basically it because you
can play this against anything c4 king's indian knight f3 king's indian you've got the white side
knight f3 go for a king's indian just again to review if you've made it this far
uh you do need to play this to support the anti attack on your knight d3 does have to happen you
can develop this bishop out either this way or this way and ultimately soon in the future you
will take control of the center and advance these pawns and try to attack your opponent
and that's basically the entire oh well we're ending with a with a grub i was trying to click
an empty square but a little blooper there that's basically it my friends you now know after just
eight minutes how the king's indian setup works and you could give it a shot with both colors
uh if you mess it up that's all right you need practice more than anything else for this video
i'm thinking i've been i've been leaving you prompts in the comments with what to answer coffee
or tea and how many cups of it do you drink a day how about we do that as always like the video if
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