Frankly also I respect BPaulsen's researches.  Not that he's always going to find Chess Truth, but he's a strong player and pretty serious about the search for White's advantage.  If he hasn't found it, you can be sure it's not easy to find.

Then again, maybe some U1200 scholastic player will stumble onto it.  Like, the Holy Grail is lying under some old cow dung in a ruined barn in northern Norway.

kevinfat wrote on 03/31/10 at 19:16:29:


Like I said, nobody is sure about it.  But unto this day, it has held up.  If you want solidity, play the Slav.

Whoo, look at that, I'm over 4,000.  Too bad it's all such crap.

TonyRo wrote on 03/31/10 at 19:14:15:


Utterly fantastic but also utterly discouraging for me at the time.  And not just the game but Kasparov's voluminous notes in Informant.

Net Warrior wrote on 03/31/10 at 16:37:37:

No, not your bad.  I did indeed say that nobody would be surprised if Black's side of the Mar del Plata system were busted someday.  I just also said that I would be happy to take Black's side for the time being.  It's only that when you equated the Mar del Plata to the "Black's classical KID set-up", I disagreed with your use of that term.  The classical interpretation of the KID I take to be the Boleslavsky/Bronstein interpretation from the 1940's and early 50's, with Nbd7 and c6.

@gewgaw: For a year or two I thought that Piket's system with 9.Ne1, Be3 and b4 before a5 was busting the Mar del Plata.  And I cranked out a number of nice wins that way.  Then Garry played Piket in that famous game and busted my bust.

Generally, that's the case, but in the KID, computers aren't as useful for various reasons, some being:

1. Black makes positional concessions in return for kingside chances in the KID. Positions are generally quite closed, a positional feature computers generally don't handle particularly well. Computers are well known to misevaluate positions featuring slow kingside buildups, so most computers think White is winning until the Black attack crashes through. 

2. A lot of times these attacks require heavy material investment for attacks that can last 10-20 moves! Therefore, the benefits can lie out of the computers search depth. 

Hope this helps!

My bad, I presumed you were referring to the Mar del Plata system the OP asked about. 

Markovich wrote on 03/31/10 at 12:47:28:


lol, this is quite a provocative statement.  Do you really think black's classical KID setup could be busted?  IMHO, that's like saying black is just busted in chess. 

I've been (unfortunately) unable to find a route to += in all of the variations after 9. Ne1, 9. Nd2, and 9. b4 after a maddening amount of research. 

My impression is that it's black's best bet, and barring something significant theoretically there's no reason it shouldn't be playable.

It even seems like elite GM practice has seen a recent shift to 7. Be3 instead of 7. 0-0.