Opinions on the KIA

My chess coach recently told me to learn the KIA and play it every time I play white, for awhile. Thoughts on the opening?

P.S, here's a diagram of said opening.

A coach and a FM I spoke to said the opposite, i.e. a beginner shouldn't be playing the KIA

My opinion?  It makes me wonder about your coach.  To be fair, I don't know what your coach's reason for recommending the KIA is; maybe it's a good one.  But most of the time when people say to play the KIA every time, it's to get to the same position every time without having to think or learn how to play the opening.

I don't think that's a good long-term approach.  For one, the KIA isn't a very good opening for lower-rated players.  It's too complex, and lower-rated players should play more classical openings.  Yes, it's possible to score with it for now because you won't get squashed quickly, and you'll be more familiar with the positions than your opponent... but you're missing out on critical lessons in the meantime.

You need to learn how pawns establish space in the center, and how to use that to attack.  Your tactical vision will progress more slowly than it would in open positions.  Your middlegame strategic planning will also suffer, because you're not dealing with a variety of positions -- just the same old King's Indian Attack every time.  Perhaps most importantly, you're gaining no real knowledge of how to handle the opening phase of the game, because you're avoiding it altogether!

I'm not a fan.

Coaches may recommend something like the KIA/Colle/London system (and a similar approach as black) as they do not want to spend time on openings.  This allows them to concentrate on teaching other areas.  

Think about it, if you play KIA as white, KID and Acc Dragon as Black, your openings are minimized and you can concentrate on learning chess.  Not quite the approach I like but I can see some of its value.  [And yes, I know the standard thought is play open games first as the best method to learn first principles and tactics.]

KIA, lol, I thought you are talking about car.

The only chess coach/trainer I ever had was after I was already 2200 uscf and he absolutely refused to work with me on openings. He said openings was something I could do on my own and that Americans spent too much time on openings. He only worked with me on middlegame positions and endings, in particular rook endings.

I think Reb (and his coach) has the right approach.

   I had an opportunity to sit in a 3 hour lecture one time by Susan Polgar.   She said when she was preparing for the Olympiad, that Kasparov showed up to coach the team.    He and the team sat around the kitchen table, sipping coffee and analyzing endgame strategies, tactics, and moves from middlegame positions.  No board, No chess set, just coffee, and analysis.

    but the critically important part of the game was to visualize how to win the ending before you get there - because if you blunder on your way to the ending, you will be lost when you get there - too little material left to attempt a swindle, even.

    I have encountered some 'hot-shot' players who could talk about 20 or more different openings - identifying the key moves to main line in each - but they regularly lost a lot of games because all one had to do to beat them was provide a variance and they had little ability to analyze the board and accurately select winning lines - memorization will only carry you about so far and then you have to think.

Yes, I'm aware of the benefits -- not only do you not have to "worry about" the openings, but you'll be at an advantage because of it, as you'll be much more familiar with the resulting positions than your opponent!

For a while.  Eventually, however, you'll reach a level where your opponents are plenty familiar with how to handle these openings, and you no longer have an advantage because of them.  In fact, because your opponents' overall games are more polished, you're going to have a hard time progressing.  Then where do you stand?  You've painted yourself into a corner.  You need to branch out to expand your understanding of the game, but you can't, because your skills at handling anything else lag behind your rating.  You have to tear down that crutch to move forward... so what did you gain by using it in the first place?

/agree Kepler.  I totally respect the KIA as an anti-Sicilian weapon.  What I object to is the notion of using it automatically in every game, for the sole purpose of avoiding the opening phase altogether.

The playing it in every game was just until I got the hang of the opening, became familiar with the position. My coach thought I needed something other than the Ruy to play, so, I got the KIA. Alkso, for that "Too complex" statement, Spiffe, before I really knew what opening were "complex" or not, I taught myself the Grunfeld, because I dislike playing 1...d5, or 1...e5. I have stopped playing the KIA in most games, but it's good to have more than the one same opening to play every time. Thank you, everyone who took the time to post here. I appreciate the advice given, and statements made.

EDIT: I may not be as much of a beginner as you think. Recently, I have been able to beat a few players in friendly matches, each rated over 1700 USCF.