kylemeister wrote on 05/10/14 at 16:52:07:


Well White creates the absolutely normal, d5-pawn chain, closed King's Indian structure at the earliest opportunity and his pieces are all on normal squares, i.e. Nf3, Nc3, and Be2.  And these lines seem to all feature very normal King's Indian moves, knights going to c5, h5, and f4, playing for ...f5, etc.  I mean there's more to the Petrosian than just this, but:



Of course either side can deviate, but knowing how to play the "d5 Pawn Chain" structures should be a King's Indian player's bread and butter, right?  

We might all have differing ideas of what normal is, but this all just seems like regular, closed chess to me, that can be played by feel and doesn't need in depth theoretical preparation from either side.  The types of positions arise in many openings (old Indian, some Bogo-Indian with the dark squared bishops exchanged, even some 1.e4 e5) and seem about as normal to me as a Scheveningen structure might to a 1.e4 player, or a Carlsbad or IQP structure to someone else.

I think that's overstating just how "normal" Black's play is in the Petrosian -- e.g. playing for an early ...Nc5 sounds like a good way to be worse, and the other knight often goes to h7 ...

Mar del Plata Variation gives black what he wants! But perhaps you are giving him too much. I think this is the variation where black scores best.

ChessSiberia wrote on 01/13/14 at 12:41:03:


Vague, basically content free. "Cheese is great!"
Welcome. Better to delete your ad, or your posts will be deleted. Against house rules. 
Come, discuss theory. Not crass advertising for your site. 
Thanks.

Funnily enough when I played the KID, I least liked to see the Classical as I felt it was White's best continuation. But most new KID players are drawn to the attacking races in the Mar del Plata (I certainly was!). 

Perhaps your approach can be refined still further by giving the KID player a line that they will be happy facing, but which is actually somewhat annoying and which the opponent is unlikely to have studied (as they'll either be generally happy with the position or won't take the line seriously). In that respect the Smyslov system (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.Nf3 0-0 5.Bg5) could be a smart opening choice, which also isn't too theoretical. Then again if you're going to play this way one can plausibly ask why you don't play e.g. the Torre Attack against 2...g6. 

I agree that the Mar del Plata sounds like what you're looking for. It feels the most classically King's Indianish of all the King's Indian variations, and whether or not it's what Black actually wants, it's pretty much what he's asking for when he goes into the KID.

(I hope this question hasn't been asked & answered before.)

Which lines should I play as white in the KID, if I want to "cooperte" with black, if I want to play the variation he likes to play best?

The KID is probably the opening I know least about. I've never played it as black and I've always tried to avoid it as white (from the moment on I quit playing 1.e4 exclusively and began to dabble in d4/c4/Nf3). I've looked at lots of ways to avoid the main lines, but I never thought of just entering them, because it felt too much like I would give black exactly what he wanted. Generally I don't like to give the opponent what he wants. But I realized just now that in the case of the KID, this approach might have some positive points. I'll explain.

In some cases I do like to give the opponent what he wants in the opening, i.e. when there is a discrepancy between the reputation of the move or system on the one hand and the objective merit of the move or system, or my opponent's knowledge of how to play it, on the other hand. My hope is that it gives me a psychological advantage. For example, I could play 6.Be2 against the classical sicilian and my opponent might think I don't know I'm supposed to avoid the Boleslavsky structure. He might underestimate the line or my handling of it. Or after 4.Ng5 in the two knights, black might be happy to be able to play a gambit where he gets the initiative as black. In this case he probably knows he doesn't have an advantage yet, but still he might have a feeling that he's already won the opening. Other examples: playing the Spanish 4 knights as white and "giving" black 4… Nd4; playing the sicilian with 2… Nc6 as black and "giving" an anti-sicilian minded white player the possibility of the rossolimo; allowing the QGD exchange with Nc3. This might be the best example of the kind of psychological advantage I look for, because I think the lines where white delays Nf3 not only have a disproportionally high reputation, but are less easy to play at my level (around 1800) as well. The opponent still has to find the right moves once he is out of book.
(Remarks:
-The other advantage to this approach is of course that I often get to play what I prepare.
-Also, there's a greater satisfaction in winning the opening battle against someone who plays the supposed best moves, than against someone who just plays sensible moves in the opening. The only thing you have to for the latter is study more.
-And I also just want to mention that this strategy isn't the only thing I look for when deciding which openigs to play. It's just something that makes a variation more interesting for me to play.)

So that are the reasons why I would want to cooperate with an opponent playing the KID. Now the question: are there lines in the KID of which the books always tell you they give you an attacking game, or an easy game, or some advantage that is only important on a 2200+ level? Lines that a large percentage of KID players would always enter if they were given the chance? I'm not looking for inferior lines, just lines with a disproportionatly high reputation. Preferably reachable with a move order that doesn"t give black a lot of options.
The one line I can think of is the Samisch, where I can "allow" black to play c5. But I think there must be even better options. Like I said, I never studied the main lines of the KID.