Probably the most spectacular game played in the past year was the brilliant win by Gawain Jones in the Olympiad. Gawain, a devotee of the King’s Indian Defence, succeeded in fashioning a masterpiece very much in the style of those King’s Indian heroes David Bronstein, Mikhail Tal and Leonid Stein.
Nguyen (Vietnam)-Jones (England): Baku Chess Olympiad 2016; King’s Indian Defence
1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 Bg7 4 e4 0-0 5 Nf3 d6 6 h3 e5 7 d5 Na6 8 Be3 Nc5 9 Nd2 Nh5 This is highly unusual. In previous play, Black almost invariably secured the position of his queen’s knight with 9 … a5. 10 b4 Na6 11 a3 Qe8 12 c5 Black’s loss of time in the opening has allowed White to build up a clear advantage on the queenside while his own kingside counterplay has not really got going. 12 … f5 13 cxd6 cxd6 13 … f4 can be met by the remarkable response 14 Bxa7 Rxa7 15 Nb5 Ra8 16 dxc7.
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