Hey guys, want to hear what you have to say about KIA. Although it can be considered a 'sister' opening of KID, I find it more easy to play than KID.
Because KID is not a system and it has plenty (PLENTY!) of theory. People always say that intermediate players should stay away from KID for good. KIA is much more straightforward and I'm integrating it in my repertoire opening for now with some good games with it.
Also, there is the fact that you can employ against many openings. You can play it mainly against the French and the Sicilian. I'm liking it and I hope it can help me develop my KID game.
let's start with the good news.
- the KID is regarded as a respected "universal weapon" against anything that's not 1 e4, so of course the KIA can't be much worse.
- the positions after the opening will often have some imbalance and/or a reasonable number of pieces on the board, which allows both sides to play for a win
- petrosian had some great games in it, fischer liked the KIA setup against the french (1 e4 e6 2 d3 d5 3 Nd2 move order), i also often play it myself :o
- castling quickly is good etc, i won't bore you with the usual speech.
sounds great, right? now, for the bad news.
- since white doesn't rush to control the center, black can adopt a very wide variety of setups, just as is the case against the king's indian. the fact you are a tempo up just means that the sharpest setups are less dangerous than usual (black can still play them)
- so, white should be ready to play a lot of different types of positions and pawn structures.
- if black plays to take the center with pawns, they might end up with a space advantage, which means that white will be worse if they don't play accurately.
- even if black doesn't want to go into "critical" lines, he can still "equalize" fairly easily in a number of natural ways.
note that in the "good news" i didn't say anything about it being "easy" or "non-theoretical". handling all the flexibility that both players have and choosing the correct plans to meet the extremely wide variety of setups black can adopt requires some experience.
so well, should you play it? i could go on for a bit, but most importantly, you should have fun! :o
Good points Rise. I think that if one is going to avoid a certain opening because it has too much theory, you will play almost nothing. Ruy Lopez, Italian, Sicilian, KID are all heavy theoretical openings. I like KID but I really feel it's not in my level yet. When I tried I scored poorly with it. I guess that playing from white's side version of KID (KIA). I can get away more with it.
having white means that you have a bit more room for error, and people tend to play less ambitiously with black. like, the reversed king's indian (black plays d5 c5 Nc6 e5) is quite critical, but you won't face it too often in practice.
in any case, fianchetto openings are probably indeed too complicated for your level, but i also believe that it can't hurt to dip your toe in different openings. at the very least, it's fun.
if you want to improve in opening play (and also in general), i would recommend keeping an open mind and trying to learn from your experiences, specially when you are outplayed. look at which points you didn't have a plan or why your plans didn't work, which pieces ended up being bad, things like that.
like in the KIA, don't just always blitz out the opening regardless of what the opponent's doing, try to at least think of some purpose for your moves. you don't ALWAYS have to play Nbd2, or the c4-break may also be interesting (instead of e4).
It's ok, there are more tricks you might guess, not only standard plans. I prefer the slightly more modern Qe2 version. And: I play it mainly against French or ... e6 Sizis like Fischer.
When I first started playing KIA several years ago, I uncorked this against Rybka (it was on a low level)
@Unthinkabl3 Nice game but that doesn't make KIA so trashy imo.
( Don't say Traxler is also trashy, I switched to Ulvestad in formal play. )
@savagechess2k I like the KIA a great deal...I have no experience with Traxler. I agree with Fischer's assessment with the KIA, it is much stronger when black has locked in the light squared Bishop with e6.
From what I can tell, every Master knows how to play the KIA and it's general principals.
I also know and played it in some games OTB but if black plays like Yugoslav Attack you get absolutely crushed
Fischer gets misquoted here. He played 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 e6 3 d3 only twice and 1 e4 e6 2 d3 only 6 times. He played 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 e6 3 d4 9 times and 1 e4 e6 2 d4 34 times. In 1969 commenting on his game in 1957 he wrote "I thought it led to a favourable variation of the King's Indian reversed". This implies he did not think so any more in 1969. d4, not d3 was also his play in candidates matches against Larsen and Petrosian in 1970.
