lichess.org
Donate

Racing Kings Openings: Kg3

OpeningChess variant
RK level: Beginner - Intermediate

Why listen to me?

I have been a top 150 ranked RK player. I am also rated as Racing Kings Master (RKM), according to RKA (Racing Kings Association). I have also played and won against several top 50 rated RK players.

Kg3: Main Line

Majority of my RK repertoire is based on 1. Kg3. I used to play 1. Kh3, but that isn't a very good move. Most people ranging from 1600 - 2250 will play the symmetrical move, 1.. Kb3. This is also the engine recommended move.
This is however when you should say to the engine, "You know what? I don't really care."

The engine says that the most recommended move here is Bd4. But my repertoire supports Kf4, Kc4. Black continues to copy. Now we play Ke5, which is because you pinned the rook in the diagonal because if the rook moves, it activates the diagonal, which is a check, which is illegal.
Now there is only one possible move for black that holds. All the rest are completely winning for us. 3..Qh6 is the move Black should be playing here. I suggest playing Nxc2 here, just picking up material. I can safely say that many top 10 rated players would agree. Here we have TOO many options that will be covered on the sidelines paragraph.

Kg3: Sidelines

https://lichess.org/0xExdRzW

This is the current position. Here I recommend the following three main moves. Check them out. If you have a particular liking to a move you can skip down.

Kb5:

Engine recommended move, according to the engine is the only move that holds for Black. But we don't care About that, this is the reason we took the bishop. Rg6 is played, following Nxf2. Rd6 is recommended. Now both Nfe4 and Nde4, are okay but Nde4 is better. I am not going to cover this line beyond this as there are too many sidelines. More importantly, I don't play this.

Nxf2:

A good example of this:

https://lichess.org/CWQf3Pga#24
.
Rxf2 follows as well as Rxc2. Now the material is equal. Rf6 here is good. Now there are 2 main variations. First is a cheap trap and the other is the engine recommended move. The cheap trap is after Qc6 so that you can do Kc5, move the rook and block 2 files with the rooks and then move to Kb6, Ka7 as well as Ka8. But you can just play Bg2 and you are completely winning. The other variation is after Rb6, Re6, and Kb5. This is the variation that high-level players usually play.

Rxc2:

This is just losing. Don't even try this move. This will only work with ~1600 level players so don't play them with like high rated players. After Rg6, this is completely winning, according to the engine. But try it out. Maybe you can make your own variation.