MartinC wrote on 01/31/14 at 08:59:37:

Not necessarily. Compare Donner-Gligoric, Zonal Bad Pyrmont 1951.

MartinC wrote on 01/31/14 at 08:59:37:

Not necessarily either. If Black tried to maintain the tension with ...Re8 the usual reply was (is?) d4-d5 arguing that Re8 is misplaced in the forthcoming race, eg 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 Nbd7 7.O-O e5 8.Re1 c6 9.Bf1 a5 10.Rb1 and Re8 11.d5 c5 was much more popular than 10...exd4.
Euwe explained that after ...exd4 the burden was on Black to prove sufficiently active piece play. A sample line that might be attractive is 9...a5 10.Rb1 Ng4 11.h3 exd4 12.Nxd4 Qb6 13.Qxg4 Bxd4. Because of 10.Rb1 Black threatens to win a piece.
Another attempt is 9...a6, arguing that 10.d5 c5 wins a tempo. The pawn on c5 is an important difference of course, but the general idea for Black remains to mate White.
There is some uncharted territory left here, mainly because the pawn race after 6...Nc6 7.d5 Ne7 is so popular.

Apparently it has been forgotten that the original KID (including the Classical) involved ...Nbd7 rather than ...exd4. 

I think that in all openings you gain something and give up something else. In the Nimzo you (potentially) give up the pair of bishops, in the Grünfeld you give the opponent a big centre, and volontarily exchanges your d-pawn for the opponents c-pawn etc. This is definitely the case in the KID classical variation - you give up space and the g7-bishop is very much hemmed in by the pawn-chain, at least initially - just as  Ametanoitos states. Still in return you get speedy development, and in the classical I think that the very fact that white has committed to King-side castling is something you "gain" in return for placing yet another piece (Ne7) badly. What I mean by this is that White has placed his king on the part of the board where black has potential to become the stronger side. This is dangerous with a fixed central pawn-structure, which clearly has been proven in many games .
What I mean is that it is maybe a bit too simplistic to claim that the KID is an anti-positional opening. Black clearly accepts some positional deficiencies in his position in return for other values. If these are sufficient to maintain the balance is a difficult question (I, for one, defenitely don't know), but I think Eric is close to the truth when he talks about dynamics as a factor. Dynamic aspects are fluctual in nature, and puts a burden on black to quickly create counterplay. Whites advantages, in particular the space, is a static advantage that will remain a factor for a long time, and black must use whatever short-term opportunities available to turn the space advantage into over-extension, or get some other form of compensation. This means that there is a requirement on black to play energetically, and this might be the problem. When playing the KID it is often not enough to make "reasonable" moves to get a decent position and this makes the opening difficult to play (well).
If the KID is anti-positional, but saved by the "Jugoslav" regrouping of pieces (wasn't Najdorf involved?) - is there not a problem in our understanding of positional/anti-positional?

If you want to categorise an opening take a look at its "Classical Variation". All the lines that are called like that represent the most logical way to play for both sides. If we agree on that, looking at the Classical Variation of the KID (2 knights out and bishop at e2 and castle for White) we can see that Black is certainly playing anti-positional chess, giving space to White and having a really bad bishop at g7. There is a race and Black is far behind, but he is "saved" by the fact that he is attacking the king and that the yugoslavians discovered a nice way to regroup Black's pieces so that they can win some time defending while organising their own attack.

This is not my opinion by the way. Reading Golubev's excellent "Understanding the KID" (one of the few books that while being old are still quite usefull and relevant) will lead you to the same conclusions.

Imho, the KID is certainly not one-dimensional. This is perhaps only the case if you look at lines like 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 where Black indeed mostly plays only for one aim: mating White´s king.

But if White goes for example for the Fianchetto Variation an attack on the kingside will be rarely seen, at least with a pawn storm.

One thing Black should always do in the KID is playing active. Since Black lacks space in most lines he has to look for ways to counter this disadvantage, else he will be strangled.

So I believe one has to be fairly versatile to be able to play this defence well.