king indian vs queen indian

Both have tons of theory. The KID I think theory is more required to play the positions well, since the lines are filled with all sorts of strange little moves you won't find unless you study the theory.. sometimes only-moves. So you really need to study the KID day and night, like some people do, to play it at a high level. But the KID I'd say is more complex, so if you do know the theory maybe you have better fighting chances here.

The QID, while it also has tons of theory, can be played somewhat intuitively past a certain point.

Both defenses have specific variations that give them trouble...

The QID pairs well with the nimzo-indian, KID you have to play a pirc. Clearly the nimzo is better, the Pirc just sucks.

So I think I'd recommend QID before KID if you're pairing it with the nimzo.

But really if I'm playing the nimzo I'd prefer to play a vienna along with it.

GM Kotronias wrote an excellent 5 volume set on the KID. I have a friend who has always liked the KID. Plus he has always loved theory, the more the better he says, so naturally he has the 5 volume repertoire set and will play nothing else. I have GM Kotronias' 400+ pages wide tall book on the Tarrasch Defense. It's a big book loaded, but in it Kotronias writes that although the Tarrasch Defense has a lot of theory it does not begin to compare to the massive amount of theory in the KID and in the author's opinion the Tarrasch Defense is more practical to play as black unless one knows the KID's theory very well (which is very difficult to do because there is so much of it). As ibrust pointed out, one should be a very dedicated fan of the KID to play it, like my friend is.

Yeah for the club player who has to work a job I'd recommend the Tarrasch / Semi-Tarrasch before either of those.

Most of that sounds reasonable, but I don't follow you here. Surely one advantage of the KID is you don't have to pair it with anything -- it's playable against pretty much anything other than 1. e4. Of course, against 1.e4 you'd need something else (which could be a Pirc, but needn't be), but that's equally true of the QID -- in fact, it's a bigger problem there because you have to be ready for the QID against some lines and the Nimzo against others.

The one exception is the Jobava London (1. d4 Nf6 2. Nc3), where you have to play 2 . . . d5 to avoid transposing to a Pirc, but that's a fairly minor exception.

You're correct that you don't have to play a Pirc, that was just a misconception I had about the KID. I never really had any interest in playing the KID tbh. But if I did play it... I think I probably would lean toward playing the Pirc because I'd want to be able to respond flexibly even to odd moves like 1. Nf3, 1. Nc3, 1. g3 or 1. e3, or whatever else. However, admittedly I haven't looked at the lines in enough depth to really comment on how much theory this would save me. The post there was kind of a lighthearted one, I like to knock the Pirc whenever I can... I do believe it sucks. But yeah, you are correct you can avoid it.

The KID has no real relation with the Pirc. The absense of a pawn at c4 makes a huge difference.

If you are going to pair the KID with another opening, The best option would be Grunfeld.

The KID is fun and very dynamical because it creates an attack against enemy King. The down side is in exchange for creating such an attack it creates positional weaknesses in its position which ultimately causes the KID to be less sound.

Grunfeld is solid and 💯 sound. The down side is the Grunfeld attacks the opponent center and not their King which reduces some of the fun/dynamics.

Wow -- learn the theory in the KID and Gruenfeld. I admire it -- both are rich, dynamic openings. But that doesn't sound like the most practical of options, and I'm not sure in what scenarios you'd need to know both. It's not like they have extensive thematic overlaps, depsite the fianchetto -- the d6 vs d5 setup makes a big difference. (I guess if you're a Gruenfeld player, though, you'd want to consider playing the KID against certain anti-Gruenfelds -- is that what you mean?)

If you employ the modern Tarrasch trend (the so-called Dubov Tarrasch) these "400+ pages" (actually they are 384) could be cut in half.

Actually, I was a KID main which had to change over to the Gruenfeld due to what I call Anti-KID lines.

However, you are also correct about Gruenfeld as well.

Their are some Anti-Gruenfeld lines which could cause Gruenfeld players to learn KID.

The above is how the lines can pair up.

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Again, I’m not saying person has to do the above, I did.

Doesn’t mean everyone else has too.

I’m just commenting on the subject of how lines can pair up.

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Another thing worth mentioning is The Pirc is often used by Philidor players.

They play for Philidor with Pirc move order so it’s actually not that bad.

I use to play Philidor and I ended up learning Pirc due to modern Philidor players recommend that way of getting into it.

Now a days, I play the Sicilian.

Sicilian has similar ideas as Philidor except it runs semi-open C file vs. E file which gives better counter king attacking chances.

Interesting -- which ones bothered you?

The lines where white doesn’t play e4, but instead plays e3 or leaves pawn on e2.

I guess it takes some of the fun out, so I understand doing that. For me, these are games where Black shouldn't have any problems, so I don't worry too much. I figure a White player who wants to kill the fun and play unambitiously will always find a way to do this. If you're a Sicilian player, I bet you endure some pretty dull antisicilians (Bc4 garbage, etc) where you nevertheless score just fine.

I found the opposite in my experience.

I think Black has tons of problems which many don’t appreciate or understand. A lot of the problems Black has is also self inflicted. This is the main reason why I started playing the Grunfeld.

Originally, I started playing the Grunfeld to help counter these sorts of lines.

Than I started liking the Grunfeld and became Grunfeld main. Than players started playing Anti-Grunfeld lines which lead me to start playing KID again.

As a result, I sort of play mixture of both.