Hi all,

I'm an avid 1. d4 player, and have recently encountered quite a few games where my opponents reacted with the King's Indian Defense.

I'm aware that Black's strategy involves a king-side attack, and while that of White most often involves a queen-side attack.

Beyond that, however, I know very little. What are some thematic moves and plans for White in the KID?

It depends on what variation you play from the white side. There are variations from the white side where it is white who attacks on the kingside.

There is so much theory on the King's Indian Defense that your question can't really be answered in the forum. Why not pick some KID games from high rated players and start discussions on them in the game analysis forum. You can annotate them yourself and then ask others for comment. You will learn a lot that way.

Hi Loomis, thanks for your reply!

I suppose I should have elaborated slightly. I'm curious about the KID classical variation.

And do you know of any illustrative games I should take a look at?

Bro...try some of Kasparov's KID and Fischer's on the black side, and as white Spassky's game against it with the white pieces,or Kramnik's approach to it as white.

I remember seeing a lot of KID in the 1953 Zurich Candidates tournament book by Bronstein. I used to play the KID as black, but gave it up when I couldn't win a game against b4 line, i used to follow the Nh5 lines. I think GM Gligoric is the vertouso of this opening i think...

The way I really got a handle on the KID (I play it as black) was looking over grandmaster games and watching how they played it, as well as playing against chessmaster with the knowledge I had received from the grandmaster games as well as a good book I have "secrets of the kings indian".