What are the main strategic concepts in the Grunfeld?

Question

I recently picked up on the Grunfeld and I am quite pleased with this opening. To improve my skill at playing this opening;

• What are the most important strategic/thematic concepts that I should learn?
• What other, less important, concepts should I learn after i'm skilled at the most important?
• What kind of endgames can I expect? ( which pieces )

The Grunfeld mainline starts with:

[FEN ""]
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5

Answer 1

Very often Black will end up with a poor pawn structure in return for piece activity for example after the pawn moves d5 e6 dxe6 and fxe6 (not necessarily right after another).

As for other concepts, you need to accept that you need to study a lot of concrete lines. White has many options against your defence of choice such as:

• The crazy sharp anti-Grünfeld 3.f3.
• The positional 5.Bd2 line.
• The crazy tactical lines with an early h4.
• The system with Nf3 + an early Qb3.
• etc. etc.

Tactics abound in this opening and trying to work it all out over the board against a prepared opponent is suicide.

As for endgames, you can get absolutely any kind of material distribution due to the tactical nature of the opening. In general Black will get a queen side pawn majority, but whether it'll be relevant is an entirely different matter. First of all there's the matter of surviving the middlegame, and then there's the question of how many concessions Black had to make in order to neutralise the white centre in order to get there. For a great example of this going completely wrong for Black, see this game.

Answer 2

The Grunfeld is a really strategically unique opening, and what I mean by that is that it is hard to find the same ideas in other openings.

As others already mentioned, the idea behind this opening is that you are giving up the center but in exchange you get a very nice activity for your pieces, especially for the Bishop on g7 to start with:

Against the main line, you probably want to play c5, Nc6, Ng4 etc. These moves put a good pressure on White's pawn center (I know this is not a real position from the Grunfeld defense !):

To finish with the endgame, there is a saying "you should not play the Grunfeld if you are afraid of a white passed pawn on d5". Indeed, even if many Grunfeld endgames are playable, they can be slightly uncomfortable. On a more generic standpoint, it seems to me that many Grunfeld endgames at top level end up in theoretically drawn positions where White is one pawn up. thus many ways for White to press a little bit.

This is a video I have made to help intermediate players grasp the ideas of the Grunfeld defense: https://youtu.be/1kY-XJQYA3A