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The Mar del Plata Attack Part 1: Main Ideas of the Classical
A beach in Mar del Plata Photographer: Leandro Kibisz, Wikimedia

The Mar del Plata Attack Part 1: Main Ideas of the Classical

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I clearly remember the first time I played the KID. It was actually pretty recently that I started playing it, around the beginning of this year. That first game instantly glued me to the opening. Being honest, that game was of very low quality. Multiple consecutive mistakes traded back and forth. But it was clear kingside attacking chances that I got that hooked me. I'm the kind of player that always wants attacking chances, no matter how small they are.

That's why the Mar del Plata Attack is in my top three favorite lines to play, and we will be going over part of it today.

Mar del Plata is a city on the Atlantic coast of Argentina, one of the country's largest fishing ports. It's a large and popular city. Seemingly unrelated to chess, until you learn that there have been many strong tournaments located there. And in one of those tournaments, there was a fateful game between GMs Miguel Najdorf and Svetozar Gligoric which brought attention this line of the King's Indian Defense. Now known as the Mar del Plata Attack, it's one of the most dynamic and sharp lines there are. White has an established advantage, but play is very interesting.

The Mar del Plata Attack is not actually a specific line but has many variations, and I don't believe that there is a line that is officially called the "Mar del Plata Attack." But the variations sprouting from the moves below are all considered to be part of the Mar del Plata Attack and have some similar themes and ideas.

White has other options on moves 6 and 7 like the Petrosian Variation with 7. d5, but we will cover those in later posts. Today we're focused on the Classical System.

9. Ne1 is the move that signals the start of the Classical. Again white has other moves, such as 9. b4, the Bayonet Attack, but we'll get to that in another post. This series will be very long.

Now we need to understand the ideas in play after the position after the last move. You've probably heard that you should attack on the side that your pawn chain is facing, in other words where you have more space, and this is the rule of law in almost all Mar del Plata lines. White wants to attack on the queenside where he has more space, and black wants to attack on the kingside where he has more space. White's pieces will naturally gravitate to the queenside, black's to the kingside. The central situation is closed, so play on the flanks is not only justified but necessary.

But how exactly will the attacks start? For this you can turn to the foot soldiers.

The pawns dictate where each side will attack, but they are also necessary for the attack. We'll start with white's plan. He wants to advance his c-pawn to c5 and capture on d6. This will create targets for his pieces, which while black is setting up his kingside attack will be flowing to the queenside. d6, c7, and sometimes a7 are the main targets. Yes, a square can be a target too. Almost always there will be a knight placed on b5, perfectly located, staring at d6, c7 and a7. After the capture cxd6, the c-file will be open for the rooks and c7 will be calling. If that didn't make sense, here's a visual. This is just the pawn skeleton after the trade of pawns on d6. 

And white's pieces would be ideally placed here:
Maybe too many arrows, but you get the idea. The bishops are staring down the queenside, rooks dominating the open c-file, and the knight attacking the weaknesses. White's other knight could be placed on a few different squares, c4, d3, b4, or even a5 depending on the moves played.
If you haven't noticed, all of black's major weaknesses are on dark squares. Which makes both dark-squared bishops incredibly important, white's attacking the queenside, and black's defending d6 (how, I will explain later).
The queen has her choice of squares, and she will go wherever the position tells her to.
Of course, black doesn't want to allow this. So they will also start an attack, on the kingside. This time, the pawn break is ...f7-f5. A move with many intentions. In some cases, if white makes an inaccuracy, black can take on e4, opening the f-file and removing a part of the center. But white will almost always play f3 before that's possible. The main idea of ...f7-f5 is actually to advance further and take more space with ...f5-f4. This usually comes with a tempo, as white's dark-squared bishop is almost always placed on e3, forcing it to retreat to f2. The pawn structure after that will be this (...f5-f4 usually comes before c5xd6, so the c7 and c4 pawns are still on the board):
Black has gained more space on the kingside. After this, all of black's kingside pawns will come running down the board in the frenzy to topple the white king. ...h7-h4, ...g6-g5-g4 and the possibility to go to g3, etc. Black isn't exposing his own king as much as it looks like it because the center is locked and no white pieces are going to be able to make it to the kingside to punish black. The pawns will break up white's pawn cover, and behind them will come the knights, queen, light-squared bishop (and occasionally the dark-squared one too, which may come to e3 via h6 before it is blocked by ...f5-f4), and possibly a rook. Lots of firepower gunning for the white king, but black also has to worry about white massacring the queenside.
This brings us to a common kingside piece formation. In many cases black will play Rf8-Rf7. This move actually has three reasons:
  1. To guard the second (or seventh) rank from invaders, useful to challenge a rook that could try to enter on c7.
  2. To have the possibility of playing Rg7 bringing the rook to the same file that the white king is on, supporting the g-pawn and looking through it.
  3. And finally, clearing the f8 square for the bishop which will usually move there to guard one of the weaknesses, d6.

It's a useful defensive and offensive maneuver to remember and one that is used a lot. Here's and example of when it could be used:

Now we understand the ideas, so we need to look into how to execute them. The first step, of course, is to play ...f7-f5. The f6 knight is currently in the way of the f-pawn and it will need to move, hence the main move here is 9...Nd7. However more recently 9...Ne8 has emerged as another popular move, also very sharp, and my personal preference. There is logic behind each move. 9...Nd7 is more common because it prepares ...f7-f5 while also slowing down white's queenside play with c4-c5 and is seen as more "sound."

But the argument behind 9...Ne8 is that it just happens to be perfectly placed to defend two of black's weakest points, c7 and d6. 

Another reason why 9...Ne8 is growing is because 9...Nd7 doesn't actually slow down white's pawn break, as much as it may look like it. Take the Kozul Gambit, for example. White doesn't even need to play b2-b4 to support c4-c5, and can play it immediately. The play that white gets is worth, in my opinion, much more than a pawn.

9. Ne8 is looked upon as more extreme and can lead to very dynamic and crazy positions where both sides are hacking away on opposite sides of the board. 

But I will end it here. Today was just about the main ideas of the Classical System, and we will look into the lines more deeply next time, probably with separate posts on 9...Nd7 and 9...Ne8, and I will go more into detail about the pros, cons, ideas, and more. There'll also be model games for each line that we look at.

Thanks for reading!