Im not a King's Indian expert (im only 1600) but I play it a lot, and will offer my opinion.
I think that most of the time, white tries to open up the queenside, so his king would be weak there. Example
However, white can castle queenside in the Samisich.
:
White sometimes (emphasis on sometimes, not always or even frequently) castles Queenside in the Gligoric Variation (Same as the Classical only 7.Be3 instead of 7.O-O).
Saemisch is another where White often castles Queenside!
Thanks, I'll check it out!
Im not a King's Indian expert (im only 1600) but I play it a lot, and will offer my opinion.
I think that most of the time, white tries to open up the queenside, so his king would be weak there. Example
However, white can castle queenside in the Samisich.
I dont like playing that line in the saemisch as it allows white to castle queenside too comfortably. I prefer the byrne variation where an otb game of mine against a 1863 player went 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. f3 O-O 6. Be3 a6 7. Qd2 c6 8. O-O-O b5
9. g4 Qa5 10. Kb1 b4 11. Nce2 c5 12. h4 Nc6 13. d5 b3! 0-1 walking into my prep He tried Qxa5 and he lost in a worse endgame (forgot the rest of the game) but a spectacular line with logical moves from both sides to illustrate the danger for white is 14. axb3 Nb4 15. Nc1 Qb6 16. Nge2 a5 17. Nc3 a4! 18. Nxa4 Rxa4!! 19. bxa4 Bxg4! 20. Be2 Ra8 21. b3 Rxa4!! 22. bxa4 Nxe4! 23. fxe4 Nxd5+ and white's king didnt get mated but blacks queen and remaining pieces can mop up so well. Needless to say no one tried queenside castle with the saemisch against me after that.
I have never encountered, in any books, variations of the King's Indian in which white castles queenside. Intuitively, this seems like it would be desirable sometimes, since black wins tend to come from a focused kingside attack strategy. I can think of one principle that might keep white away from queenside castling -- that it would compromise his/her queenside attack -- but it seems that in balance, making such a concession could be an advantageous choice.
The devil must be in the strategic and tactical details. If such variations do not exist in serious play there must be a good reason. Some of my blind spots on this could be quite significant, so I would love to hear some experts weigh in. Thanks so much for your consideration King's-Indian-Expert-Who-Is-Reading-This-Now.
Cheers,
J. J.