The Mar del Plata Attack: The Neo-Classical with 13. Nd3 and 13. b4

Today we will be ending our journey through the Neo-Classical variation of the Mar del Plata! We've studied 13. a4, the main line, and 13. Rc1 with the Kožul Gambit so far. Now we will look at two of of the more less-common 13th moves, 13. Nd3 and 13. b4. As we've seen with the Kožul Gambit, which I explained in my last post (The Mar del Plata Attack: The Kožul Gambit), in many lines where white plays c4-c5, the positions are easily transposable. We can use that to our advantage to get positions that we know well and may understand better than our opponent. This is why in this post, I will be covering both 13. Nd3 and 13. b4 instead of splitting it into two different sections. These two moves have the many of the same ideas as the Kožul Gambit and black can play in an almost identical fashion. 

We'll see how the lines connect later on. Let's start with 13. Nd3.

In response to this, we play a move we know well. 13...Nf6, with the intention to bring all of our pieces to the kingside. By now this should be a routine maneuver. However, like in the Kožul Gambit, 13...Ng6 is playable too.

The lines I give are meant to be easy and fun to play, so you shouldn't have much difficulty using your knowledge of previously learned KID positions to help decipher the positions arising from these moves.

The most common move and the one we need to be most prepared for now is 14. c5. Like the Kožul gambit, white plays c4-c5 without support from the b-pawn, in search of quick queenside activity. However, in this line, white does not have a rook on the c-file, which removes from them a strong attacker. The rook can still move to c1 immediately on their next turn if white wishes so, but they have expended one move in time to play Nd3. 

Does the final position look familiar? It should, because it's the exact same position as the main line I gave in my post on the Kožul Gambit!

We've transposed to get the position we want, and there isn't much white can do about it. Below is the diagram that I posted last time that shows how to get to the above position in the Kožul Gambit move order.

Exactly the same, with exactly the same ideas and ways to play. At the end, as usual, there will be a demonstrative game in this line. It will be between two (former) super-GMs, the two and only Mark Taimanov and Miguel Najdorf. More on that later.

Now that we know how to combat 13. Nd3 and shape it into the position we want, let's get to 13. b4.

By now you should be able to guess the move here. Correct! 13...Nf6 is in line with how we want to play. There's another good option too, though, which is to lift the rook to f6 instead of the knight, looking to bring it to the h-file to attack. And, as almost always, 13...Ng6 is playable and will very likely transpose. Below are the next few moves.

There we have it. In all of these lines black plays Nf6, Ng6, Rf7, and cxd6 (when white captures), and it guarantees us the game we want. Now let's watch the pros handling these lines.

First up is a game between GMs Mark Taimanov, who if you have not heard of have probably at least heard of the Taimanov Sicilian and unfortunately died five years ago, and Miguel Najdorf, one of the biggest developers of the KID, who passed away almost 25 years ago at the age of 87. 

You'll see many themes common for the KID and fantastic attacking combinations. I've said this before, but if you analyze this game, you'll see that the accuracy scores are quite (you could say very) low for the Grandmaster level. Don't be surprised, though, because this game was played in 1953, and on top of that, it's a classic King's Indian Defense battle.

Now for our demonstrative game for 13. b4. This will be a very entertaining one! Playing white is GM Jeroen Piket, a Dutch Grandmaster and 4-time Dutch Chess Champion with a peak rating of 2670. And playing black is the one and only, the legend, the great Garry Kasparov. Former World Champion with a record setting peak rating of 2851 (now broken by the current World Champion, Magnus Carlsen), he is arguably one of the best chess players of all time. He used to be a great KID player but has transitioned out of it, unfortunately, but has left some great games behind for us to study, and this is one of them. This is an almost-perfect game by black and is greatly instructive, and for the record, the computer even award Kasparov three brilliant moves!

We wouldn't expect anything less from Garry. In that single game you can find so many themes of the Mar del Plata just by analyzing it. In some variations, Bxh3 sacrifices are possible. g5-g4-g3 breakthroughs. Queenside sacrifices for time to attack. Piece mobilization. All of these are so important when playing this opening. 

That concludes our exploration of the Neo-Classical Line! Let me know if there's a line that I forgot to mention or you want to know more about. For next time, there'll just be a collection of demonstrative games in all of the variations for you to enjoy playing through and studying. After that, we'll continue on with 10. Nd3, which is quite similar to many of the lines that we've already learned about.

Thanks for reading! I hope you learned something today.