Emma Dubois: Level 16 Chess Rival (1535 ELO)

Knight tier · Endgame Specialist · plays the King's Indian Defense

How Emma plays

Emma is a statistician based in Pune who chose the King's Indian for an unusual reason: she likes the endings it produces. Most players see the KID as a pure attacking weapon, but Emma knows that when the race fizzles out, the bishop on g7 and a firm pawn on e5 often make Black's ending the more pleasant one. She plays the opening as theory suggests and then steers for simplification.

Her comfort zone is a position with a few pieces left and pawns on both wings, where her king can walk to the centre and she can calculate cleanly. Sharp positions with mutual attacks are less to her taste. She plays them correctly but without much appetite, and at 1535 she can still miss a tactic when the board is full. Against Emma the danger is drifting into a technical ending without a clear plus. The opportunity is that she does not always fight hard for the initiative in the middlegame.

At 1535 ELO, Emma plays like a real club player at that rating: she sees simple threats but still leaves pieces hanging and misses tactics two or three moves deep. Check every capture she offers, and look for loose pieces after each of her moves. Most games at this level are decided by the first clean tactic, not by the opening.

King's Indian Defense: the line Emma plays

Emma plays the King's Indian Defense: ...Nf6, ...g6, ...Bg7, ...d6 and castling, letting White build a big centre and then striking at it with ...e5. In the main Mar del Plata line the centre closes after d5 and both sides attack on opposite wings, Black with ...f5 on the kingside.

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 e5 7.O-O Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.Ne1 Nd7 10.Nd3 f5

Learn it move by move: King's Indian Defense walkthrough

How to beat Emma

  1. Skip the Exchange line with an early queen trade against her. It leads straight to the endgames she studies, so keep the queens on and the pieces crowded.
  2. Fight for the dark squares around her king. With a bishop on e3 heading for h6 and your queen on d2, you can trade off her g7 bishop, the piece that makes her endings so comfortable.
  3. Start your own play early and force her to make decisions in a busy position. Her technique counts for less with many pieces left, and calculation in a melee is the weakest part of her game.
  4. If the centre locks with d5, play on the queenside where you are stronger: b4, c5 and a rook to the c-file. Do it quickly, because their ...f5-f4 and ...g5 attack is aimed at your king. Against the KID, being a tempo slow is how White loses.
  5. The book answers 1.d4 (and the Modern move order 1...g6). Open 1.e4 and she is out of book immediately.

What beating Emma teaches you

Emma teaches you to look past the opening to the endgame it leads to, and to keep pieces on when your opponent's strength lies in simplified positions.

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