Pawn Structure

O'Kelly de Galway says:

White seeks to play on the Q side, with b4 and c5.

After White's pawn exchange cxd, the base of the chain is transferred from c7 to d6.

Black seeks to play on the K side, with f5 and f4, followed by g5 and g4. In view of this action being, in the majority of cases against the castled king, the break may have seriious consequences for White, should the latter remain passive.

Question: Why wouldn't White play on the Kingside?

The setup arose from the KID. White hardly ever attacks on the kingside in this opening.

My guess would be because white has more space on the queenside, with the old maxim being, "attack on the side where your pawns are pointing."

Aside from that, I wouldn't know and will await other responses so I can learn something!

Yeah there is no chain base to attack on the K side.

How do you propose to attack in the direction you don't have room to maneuver your pieces to?

Sounds like all good answers here so far.

So in summary up to this point:

1. More space on the queenside

2. target on c file to create weakness at pawnchain base

3. saddle black with an isolated d pawn which creates another weakness to exploit and target to attack

4. More mobility for piece activity on the queenside due to having more space

I don't know about anyone else, but I, for one, feel I've learned something about evaluating pawn structures already.

With the pawns locked in the centre as they are, it's hard to add attackers to the kingside. You're supposed to attack in the direction of the pawn chain as a generality and attacking the base weakens blacks pawn structure.

There are certainly cases where you attack on the "wrong" side.  Usually it's because the pieces are in such a way that you can coordinate on (in this example) the kingside against some target (pawn, king, loose pieces. etc) while the opponent can't.  As others pointed out the extra space and ability to target a pawn on the Q-side usually guarantees good play for you there.  If for some reason your opponent was way behind in development or had moved all his pieces to the queenside, then sure, maybe you can think about opening the kingside and seeking play there.

And sometimes it's definitely confusing (to me anyway) which side is going to get the better of it.  I had one casual G/30 game where my opponent and I both castled queenside and both worked to open the queenside... as things opened I was sure I'd made a strategic error and he was winning... but then "magically" I got the better position.  His pieces looked better but as we shattered eachother's pawns I got a passer which drew away some of his pieces and I ended up with the advantage.  (Later I blundered and we drew).  But even during the postmortem I didn't really understand how my position ended up being better heh.