For some time now, we’ve known that the strongest chess engines like to
push their flank pawns up the board. This has led to an interesting
system, with which we can meet the Grunfeld and the King’s Indian.
Studying the mainlines is time consuming, and it is possible that our
opponents may know the typical plans in those openings better than us,
right? Therefore, it is a great idea to take Grunfeld and King’s Indian
players out of their comfort-zone right from the start! Let’s go 1.d4
Nf6 2.c4 g6 first and now play 3.h4!?, following in the footsteps of
Topalov, who unleashed it against Giri in the candidates tournament of
2016. Since then, numerous games have been played with 3.h4 by the likes
of Carlsen, Caruana, Ding and others. After the surprise, Grunfeld
players will find it difficult to strike in the centre with their
typical ...d5 followed by ...c5 as it is very hard to ignore white’s
push on the h-file. Also, the King’s Indian players will find that their
usual attacking ideas on the kingside don’t work anymore and will have
to resort to other ways of finding counterplay.