Play the Samisch for something different
Submitted by
Loomis on Thu, 05/08/2008 at 4:40am.
I recently posted a couple of my games where I played a rare system for white against the King's Indian defense featuring an early Bg5 with the intent of taking on f6. I have recently decided that I'd like to try something different against the King's Indian. I had heard of the Samisch variation and knew that a couple of my friends from years ago had played it. So I looked up and clicked through a couple of Karpov games where he played it to get an idea of what it looks like. Then I was off and running!
The Samisch (pronounced same-ish) features white pushing a pawn to f3 early. The g1 knight is then developed to e2 and of course will have to move again before the c1 bishop is developed. As a result, white is in no rush to castle early, but there tends not to be open lines to the king and he is safe. In fact, these days it seems black has better chances by attacking on the queenside.
I've had some early success with the Samisch, maybe I should put some real effort into it!
In the first example, black makes some critical tactical mistakes. But you can see the value in the flexibility and mobility of white's pieces as well as good control of the center.
In the second example black fails to curtail white's queenside expansion. Black's pieces become very cramped and eventually white is able to break all the way through the queenside.