Is King's Indian Defense now obsolete?

The KID is still relevant. It's slightly harder to play than the Sicilian so I prefer the latter.

But being able to play the KID is still the Shaolin trial for who wants to prove he/she can play positional games like a GM - much like the Najdorf is that for setting up attacks.

I would have thought it's much harder than the Sicilian. You don't HAVE to play the Najdorf or the Dragon after all, which are both variations which are positionally unsound.

To be precise, there is no such thing as "more sound" (as intended in last post). There are sound openings and unsound openings. Some openings are more difficult to play than others, and the KID probably falls into that category. It is unlikely it is actually unsound (to be pedantic, this possibility can't be determined for sure for any opening that is not a forced result).

Yup....the same people who say openings dont matter have memorized 35 side defenses.

Getting them to say the grob is refuted is just as hard.

Though the KID is well worth a solid defense...some people go the extreme against it.

And then theres the Grunfeld in the way.

The Najdorf is positionally unsound?  That is one heck of a claim to just throw out there ...

I'm sure of it. Having played for the same club as a player who obstinately played the Najdorf for decades when I played e6 a6 Sicilians and having seen the horrible positions he used to get all the time, and some of them he managed to draw, some losses and occasional wins. And then you check up and it turns out that the horrible positions were book positions very often.

"Positionally unsound does not = "forced loss". But I always thought "why play all these awful positions, where you're hoping for a bit of good fortune in order to win? Now, I'm convinced that 2. a6 is the strongest Sicilian form for black but not the ... e5 variations. I use it as an accelerated Kan with e6 and I'm aiming to play d5 and recapture with a piece, so I play it as a well-motivated attack on e4 by black. In other words I play the Sicilian in a highly positional manner. I don't think much of the Dragon but it's positionally unsound for different reasons than the Najdorf. The Dragon is far, far too passive and too easy to play against. The pawn formation doesn't challenge white's centre and basically white has no difficult problems to face, which a 2000 FIDE player with positional aptitude cannot adequately negotiate.

Could have been less sound??

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you. You're interpreting "unsound" as "refuted", surely. As = to a forced loss. I think that's an extreme interpretation and that "unsound" can be used in a relative sense as well as in the absolute sense, which you prefer.

Someone might want to tell Anand, Grischuk, Kasparov, Carlsen, MVL, Ding, Giri, Caruana, Nepomniachtchi, and Nakamura that they enjoy playing a "positionally unsound" opening.  Not to mention guys like Ramesh, Aagaard, and Neilsen.

There is a lot of theory in the Najdorf - not all of it is good.  Just because something is in the book does not mean it is Black's best option (or even a playable option!), it simply means someone tried to play it.

I get it, you like the O'Kelly.  As White, I love facing the O'Kelly as I get a Maroczy Bind basically for free.  How you can view that as "sound" and the mainline Najdorf as "unsound" is beyond my comprehension.

Even when not remembering all the lines exactly, one should have an idea as to what the typical plans are. Whether one should push pawns on the kingside, which pawns to advance in the center, where to position the knights, what the favorable and what the unfavorable trades are, etc.

I'd be willing to discuss it (the soundness of the Najdorf) with them. The discrepancy is that where there are tactical means to justify a positionally unsound opening line, you're arguing that those means vindicate the opening. However, those tactical means often require the memorising of, say, 25 to 30 moves of theory and all because the opening IS positionally unsound; SO tactical means are require to vindicate it. Since a Maroczy Bind doesn't beat the O'Kelly by force and since I presumably get more practice against the anti-O'Kelly lines than those who actually play them get by playing them, I may still be at an advantage.

I take it you'd play 1. e4 ...c5 2. Nf3 ...a6 3. c4, which is a reasonable line for white and about as good as 3. c3. I remember that Raymond Keene kept changing his mind as to which was the better. He changed his mind at least twice and maybe three times. I think you have to play 3. c4 to make sure of the Bind and that's quite telegraphic. Would you play an early d4 or fiddle about with Nc3, Be2, 0-0 b3, Bb2, Rc1 or maybe d1 as some people do?

It's not THAT easy to get you Maroczy bind setup against the O'Kelly. I think that Black has an interesting way to avoid it.

All that said, i am pretty sure you will not encounter any of these if you play white against Optimissed    He is not playing the O'Kelly, but rather the Kan under a different move order, which gives white more options for no apparent reason.

Fair enough, however, the point was not so much that it gets there by force, but the comparison of the O'Kelly (which he, presumably is arguing is "positionally sound") to the Najdorf (which he is claiming is "positionally unsound").  In the lines above, the Andy Martin line ends up with a typical Dragondorf-type structure (albeit with a super-fianchetto'd bishop - but still with the fight over the d5-square).  The main line is a bit of a mess.  Radjabov tried it in the Candidates and was painfully outplayed.

I like Sielecki, but I have found (in both his courses and books) that there are times where he is overly optimistic in some of his lines.  Specifically, when computers reach a 0.00 evaluation he will often stop his analysis saying "Black has equalized" (that is not a slight against him - there are many authors who do this, unfortunately - John Shaw does something similar in his coverage of the Stafford Gambit in his "Play 1. e4" series where he asserts White plays e5 and "is better", which is true, but also incomplete), but it is significantly easier for White to play (this is quite often the case in his LTR: Nimzo-Ragozin course).  His O'Kelly course was an attempt to give people a complete Sicilian repertoire in under 100 lines.  In that, he succeeded, but playing those lines is not so easy.  But alas, I've gone completely off topic here.

I play similar lines to this. The main reason for the O'Kelly move order is to avoid the main line against the Kan, which runs
1. e4 c5
2. Nf3 e6
3. d4 cd
4. Nxd4 Nf6
5. Bd3, allowing white to play c4 if desired.
If black substitutes 2. a6, then 5. ....Nc6 is played. If white plays the  natural line, 6, NxNc6 dc, then black is a whole tempo up on one of the main lines, which is e6 - e5, putting his own bind upon the centre. Here black has e7 - e5, making a6, which is useful, into a free move. Black has approximate equality already.

I also enjoy the 2. ...a6 move order because it gives rise to a lot of different anti-Sicilians but the only one which is really principled is g3. Many players of the white side don't like that, so basically I tend to get a lot of anti-Sicilians which I'm probably better at than those who play them, so it's to black's advantage.

I do think that the most reliable Sicilian which equalizes without a lot of theory to be learnt is the 4 knights, and (fortunately enough for newbies) it is also simple positionally. Also out off topic, me guesses.

Pfren and I had an argument about this in the past and I'm glad he has come to understand why I play the 2. a6 lines. The only thing arguing with Pfren gave me was about 15,000 profile views of all the people who came to look at the club player who was fool enough to argue with an IM. But ultimately it gave me a lot of respect for Pfren, for more than one reason.

The nature of the argument concerned my belief that 2. e5 in the O'Kelly is substandard to my own move, Qc7. I've been playing it for approx 30 years and am still learning and refining my ideas.

I agree with that.  That is one of the reasons why Plichta's course on it was so popular.

Getting somewhat back on the main topic, Gawain Jones has a 2-volume Chessable series on the King's Indian Defense where he used modern engines and correspondence games to back up his recommendations.  From a practical standpoint, if you are trying to play for a win with Black, it is definitely a weapon you might want to consider (which would be the case in many Swiss events - which is why we saw it several times in the recent World Rapid & Blitz tournament).

<<I will stick with it meaning "correct with perfect play">> imo that gives very much the wrong idea. "Sound" does not by any means imply "perfect", unless you mean "perfect" in tygxc's sense of "not losing by force". Unfortunately, imposing your definition on others hardly helps your case, especially when they make it perfectly clear what they mean.

To be honest, since I'm using "sound" in an acceptable manner, which fully agrees with generalities about how the English language is actually used by English speakers, I can hardly give a monkey's regarding your argument from authority regarding "top chess players". Better for you to accept that I can use English at least as well as you.

It really is better to try to accept the way others may use English, when they're native speakers and not to try to impose your meanings but to accommodate those of others.  

I want more than equality and I would be trying to win no matter who the opponent is. So I play a variation of the Sicilian which I know better than virtually anyone I'm likely to play.

Regarding the KID I like as white the Classical with a very early g4. In a tournament where the controls are longer, I've seen stronger players pause and think for half an hour, quite often. They're working out how to make a series of waiting moves which gradually alters, rather than improves black's position, although it does tend to work minor pieces over towards the kingside. Black wants to sacrifice a piece on white's king side. All it takes is for white to push the Q-side  attack slightly too hard and misplace the Q by one move and the sac may be on. I was once playing a memorable game against a well-known English tournament player called Paul Shand. He sacrificed because I'd misplaced but he always thought a lot and I was ahead on time. I used that time to find the only move, which was to decline the sac and make a counter-sacrifice of my own on Black's king position. It ended in a draw.

Hehehe, from a players point of view sure.

For 2022, human white barely topped 50%. Embarrassing for white.