Kings Indian Defence

KID can be very aggressive and attack the white king, nevertheless risky for those who play it inaccurately. The main lines provide a good kingside defense, while letting White build a center of pawns since KID is hyper modern (it doesn’t put pawns in the center). Black lets White occupy the center so they can later counter-attack it and destroy it, while also building kingside pressure. White has several decent responses however, such as building pressure on Black’s undeveloped queenside.

Overall, I’d say that the KID might be for more and intermediate players (maybe above 700 Elo?), since you have to play very precisely. There are several other good openings against 1. d4, however, such as the Slav Defense, which requires less opening theory.

Of course, you don’t have to listen to this post, but I just wanted to explain some of the theory behind KID. So basically it’s simple: play KID if you want to. It might be a little risky, but who‘s stopping you?

King's Indian Defence is a great opening. It takes balls to play, but it can totally be worth it for any aggressive players. Black develops quickly and appears to concede the centre, but there is latent power in black's pawn breakouts. This is typically with e5-f5 but sometimes c5 leading to Benoni or Benko structures.

In the Classical line, black goes all in on the kingside and plays for checkmate. For example:

In other lines, black can adopt a different setup. Like in the Sämisch:

This is now essentially a Benoni. Black will want to pressure the centre with a rook on e8 and pressure the queenside with a combination of the g7 bishop and queenside pawn majority a6-b5.

I started playing the King's Indian back when I was rated (OTB) around your level, yes.

:V