THE GRÜNFELD DEFENCE

Board Position
A major Queen's Pawn Side Defence, the Grünfeld is a popular "hypermodern" strategic variation of the King's Indian where Black delays a KB-fianchetto for a QP attack on White's centre (move 3b, left). Black plans to hammer all obstacles in the path of his Indian bishop so as to increase its range on the dark central diagonal QR8-KR1 [a1-g8] (move 7wb, right). Introduced into tournament play by Austrian GM Ernst Grünfeld in 1922, it is also useful as a means of avoiding White's 4-Pawns/Averbakh lines. Board Position
Apart from the key Exchange variation (below) where knights are swapped on White's QB3(c3), other lines include the Russian, the Schlechter and the Three Knights (leading to Classical) variations. The Grunfeld can also be used in other contexts, e.g. against the Nimzowitsch Attack or the English Opg..
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Clear or Groups
or see move: 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 d5 to (main:) 4 cxd5 Nxd5 5 e4 Nxc3 6 bxc3 c5 7 Nf3 Bg7 8 Bb5+ Bd7 9 Bxd7 Qxd7 10 0-0 cxd4 11 cxd4 Nc6 12 Be3 0-0