One opening that more club players might consider is the Old Indian Defence, with 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 d6 intending 3….Nbd7 and a later …e7-e5. It is a bit like a King’s Indian but Black will normally develop his bishop on e7 rather than g7. It has the reputation of being solid but rather passive, but one great advantage is that you do not need to know a lot of theory to play it.

It’s not a bad opening for ‘mature’ GMs either, which is what has prompted me to try it in a few games. It went pretty well, and not least because my opponents did not know what to do against it. Here’s an example:

[Event "31st British Rapid 2017"] [Site "Ilkley ENG"] [Date "2017.11.18"] [Round "1.2"] [White "Combie, A."] [Black "Davies, N"] [Result "0-1"] [BlackElo "2494"] [ECO "A53"] [EventCountry "ENG"] [EventDate "2017.11.18"] [EventRounds "10"] [EventType "swiss (rapid)"] 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 d6 3.Nc3 Nbd7 4.Nf3 c6 { After the immediate 4...e5 White can play 5.Bg5.} 5.e4 {In this position 5.Bg5 can be met by 5...h6 6.Bh4 g5 7.Bg3 Nh5, depriving White of his dark square bishop. Obviously Black would have to be careful about castling kingside after this.} 5...e5 6.d5 Be7 7.Be2 O-O 8.O-O a6 9.h3 {This doesn't look quite right. The standard move is 9.Be3 when Black should play 9...cxd5 10.cxd5 Ng4 before White regroups with 11.Nd2.} 9...cxd5 10.cxd5 b5 11.a3 Nb6 12.b3 {12.Be3 was still the right way to develop. } 12...Bd7 13.Be3 Qb8 14.Ne1 Rc8 15.Rc1 a5 {Black's last few moves are all very typical of the Old Indian and he is generating quite good play on the queenside. This is in spite the fact that the d5 pawn gives White more space in this sector.} 16.f3 {White is concerned about his e4 pawn but this creates more weaknesses on the dark squares.} 16...Nh5 17.Nd3 Ng3 18.Re1 f5 {A typical lever for Black in this pawn structure.} 19.Nf2 Bh4 20.Bxb5 f4 21.Bxd7 Nxd7 22.Bd2 Qa7 23.Rf1 {Clearly not liking the pressure against f2, but Black is just winning now. 23.a4 was a better try after which 23...Nf5 24.Rf1 Ne3 25.Qe2 Nxf1 still wins the exchange but with White being able to mount more resistance than in the game.} 23...Nxf1 24.Qxf1 Rab8 25.Ne2 Nc5 26.Kh2 Nxb3 27.Rxc8+ Rxc8 28.Be1 Rc2 29.Nd3 Bxe1 30.Qxe1 Qe3 31.Ng1 0-1 your web browser and/or your host do not support iframes as required to display the chessboard; alternatively your wordpress theme might suppress the html iframe tag from articles or excerpts

Are there any books on the Old Indian that I would recommend? Actually there’s one very good one, but it’s not immediately obvious that the Old Indian is in there. Play 1…d6 Against Everything by Erik Zude and Joerg Hickl covers both the Old Indian and the Antoshin Variation of the Philidor (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Be7), but the authors advocate starting with a 1…d6 move order. It could be that ‘Play the Old Indian Defence and the Antoshin Philidor’ was a less snappy title, but actually I think that Black may be better off playing 1.d4 Nf6 and 1.e4 e5 to reach most of the lines covered.

Nigel Davies

Please follow and like us: