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King’s Indian & Grünfeld:
Fianchetto Lines

by Lasha Janjgava

Gambit Publications, January 2003

Softcover, 320 pages,

Reviewed by Jens I. Madsen

Let it be said to begin with: King’s Indian & Grünfeld : Fianchetto Lines is not a fun book, but rather a serious book aimed at serious chess players. With Fianchetto Lines, the third book penned by Georgian GM Lasha Janjgava for Gambit Publications (following The Queen’s Gambit & Catalan for Black and The Petroff ), we are offered a thorough theoretical review of two important opening systems.

Fianchetto Lines is rich on concrete analysis presented in an objective manner without any bias towards White or Black, and the well-organized material should serve the advanced player (rated 2000+) with an interest in these opening systems well. Weaker players are likely to find the scant use of verbose explanations cumbersome, so that the book could easily end up a permanent shelf-dweller.

As the title indicates, Fianchetto Lines is an ambitious project that covers fianchetto systems against two important Black mainstays - the King’s Indian and the Grünfeld. This may appear to be quite a mouthful for one book, but with 320 densely filled pages of analysis Janjgava covers far more ground than most other contemporary opening books. I am aware of separate books on The Fianchetto King’s Indian (by McNab, Batsford 1996) and the Fianchetto Grünfeld (by Mikhalchishin & Beliavsky, Everyman 1998), but to the best of my knowledge Janjgava is the first to attempt a unified coverage of both systems. This is actually slightly surprising, since the present scope is a quite logical one. After all, White must be prepared to face both the King’s Indian as well as the Grünfeld after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.g3 Bg7 4.Bg2.

It was already indicated that Janjgava is a man of few words (but a lot of sub-variations). For instance, he does not waste space on a general strategic introduction, but rather uses the short two-page introduction for a quick historical perspective. A brief introduction to the special traits of the fianchetto systems would have been in place. Not only would this ease the digestion of the dense chapters following, it would also serve as an appetizer and help set the right mood. The dry, non-verbose style permeates the entire book, although in all fairness it must be said that Fianchetto Lines has more interspersed prose than for instance Janjgava’s previous work on the Petroff.

So what are the general strategic themes of these fianchetto lines? The back page editorial note offers a good idea of the White game plan: “By calmly fianchettoing his king’s bishop in reply to the King’s Indian and Grünfeld, White seeks to draw the sting from these dynamic defences and exert positional pressure throughout the middlegame. By refusing to create a massive pawn-centre, he offers Black no target for counterplay.”

Objectively speaking, there is little doubt that these fianchetto lines are not the most critical test of Black’s play in the King’s Indian or Grünfeld. Nonetheless, yours truly has learned the hard way, from several bitter defeats as Black in the fianchetto Grünfeld, that White’s seemingly unpretentious approach should not be underestimated. In his thoughtful and entertaining book Understanding the Grünfeld (Gambit 1999), Jonathan Rowson treated the fianchetto Grünfeld lines with lots of respect. Rowson also reflected on the merits of this system and reached the conclusion that the relative lack of positional imbalances, which practitioners of the King’s Indian and Grünfeld usually thrive on, played an important role. Although these thoughts were originally contemplated in a Grünfeld framework, I believe they apply equally to the King’s Indian fianchetto.

After the short introduction, Fianchetto Lines is divided into eleven chapters followed by an index of variations, or rather, a Chapter Guide. While the material in itself is very well organized, the provided index is not very useful. I say so, because there is an absence of cross references to account for possible move transpositions. Instead, the index merely reels off page references for various sub-variations in their strict order of appearance.

The theoretical coverage is clearly skewed towards the King’s Indian, which occupies the first ¾ of the book. There is a special twist to Chapter One that considers the King’s Indian lines reached after 4…c5. This extends an invitation to enter the Modern Benoni after 5.d5. Incidentally, the fianchetto Benoni lines enjoy a reputation quite similar to that of the fianchetto King’s Indian and Grünfeld: they are not considered the most dangerous system, but at the same time it can be difficult for Black to achieve an active game. The Modern Benoni falls beyond the scope of Fianchetto Lines, and Janjgava instead suggests declining this invitation by playing 5.Nf3. This leads to a position, which may also be reached from the symmetrical English opening.

Fianchetto Lines now turns to the more proper fianchetto King’s Indian, i.e. as it occurs after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.g3 Bg7 4.Bg2 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.0-0.

Here Fianchetto Lines considers four main options for Black, namely 6…c6, 6…c5, 6…Nc6, and 6…Nbd7. Among these systems, the Classical Fianchetto King’s Indian that arises after 6…Nbd7 is the most frequently encountered one, probably only matched these days by 6…Nc6 in popularity. The 6…Nbd7 is Classical in the sense that Black pursues a standard King’s Indian plan of countering immediately with 7…e5. In comparison, after 6…Nc6 Black will often (but not always) seek his chances on the queenside after ...a6, ...Rb8 and …b5 (The Panno variation). Janjgava spends three chapters dealing with subsystems within the Classical Fianchetto (6…Nbd7) and two analyzing the systems characterized by 6…Nc6.

To finish off the King’s Indian part of the book, Fianchetto Lines looks at the modern 6…c6 in one chapter and allots two chapters for the treatment of lines following 6…c5. As this reviewer is not a close observer of King’s Indian theory in general, I would rather abstain from making a judgment on the quality and originality of Janjgava’s analysis in the above mentioned part of the book, but there is little doubt that the material covers most important alternatives from both sides of the board.

If you are still hanging in there, I will turn attention to the Grünfeld part of Fianchetto Lines. This part has been divided into two chapters; One chapter dealing with the somewhat dull 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.g3 c6 and another chapter considering a more traditional Black setup with 3…Bg7 and 4…d5. The 3…c6 system has made occasional appearances in the games of many great players and is by no means a new idea. As early as 1923, Ernst Grünfeld himself used this move order, and forty years later Fischer used it to defeat Robert Byrne in a truly memorable game that won him the brilliancy prize at the 1963-64 US Championships. Even Kasparov used this system on several occasions, including twice against Karpov in their Sevilla match. In those games, a symmetrical pawn structure appeared after the exchange of central pawns (4.Bg2 d5 5.cxd5 cxd5), and in Fianchetto Lines Janjgava confines his treatment to similar lines.

The chapter covering the fianchetto Grünfeld with 3…c6 is one of very few places in Fianchetto Lines, where I feel the coverage could have been more complete. If White is not content with entering the symmetrical lines, there are different ways to maintain the central tension. Unfortunately, these go largely unmentioned by Janjgava, who only cursorily mentions 5.Qa4 as an alternative. Another interesting idea, which scores very well in databases is Tukmakov’s idea of an early Qb3 (typically after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.g3 c6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Nc3 d5 6.Qb3!?). Admittedly, this is not a very popular line, but it is certainly more than playable, and since it is featured in earlier Grünfeld books such as Winning With the Grünfeld by Adorjan & Döry (Collier Books, 1987) and The Grünfeld for the Attacking Player by Lalic (Batsford 1997), Black should be prepared if he wants to play the 3…c6 line.

In conclusion, Fianchetto Lines appears to be a thorough and very comprehensive theoretical review of an important opening system. Janjgava has turned almost every stone there is to turn, and I have not identified any major blank spots left on the map by him. As pointed out earlier in this review, Fianchetto Lines is definitely not the type of book you read from cover-to-cover, but rather it may serve as a valuable work of reference.

The book is recommended for the relatively advanced player with an interest in these lines. While I see the charm of a hardcopy (did I mention how nice the book looks on the bookshelf?) the dry content poses the natural question: should this have been released electronically as a commented database. Certainly an electronic version would add the user-friendliness of easier navigation.