9...a5 Against the Bayonet Attack: A Strategic "Antidote" and the Numbers That Are Missing

The headline talks about a team round in Samarkand. The body talks about a DVD teaching the King's Indian Defense. The two have nothing in common. I read it twice, turned off the light, turned it back on, and still saw exactly one truth: someone is selling me two different products under a single label. "Ten years standing in the middle of an argument, the fire lit by a question in 2026 is still burning." But this time the fire did not come from a hard question in a press conference. It came from a packaging error. When a chess document cannot match its own headline to its own content, every number inside it has to be stripped out and re-examined from scratch. I am not the type who enjoys nitpicking. "That empty stadium years ago, I found the tactical diagram lying quietly under the seat instead of the roar of the crowd." But if that diagram has the wrong match name on it, I will not put my signature on it. This article exists for exactly that reason. CONTEXT: WHY A DVD IS WORTH DISSECTING The King's Indian Defense is a hypermodern opening. Black accepts conceding the center from the very first move — 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 and then ...Bg7 — only to use that same center as a springboard for a counterattack. This is not an opening for people who like safety. This is an opening for people who like a fight. The Mar del Plata variation is the sharpest branch of this defense. Black develops ...Nc6 and ...e5; both sides launch attacks on opposite wings. White pushes pawns on the queenside, Black pushes pawns on the kingside, and the game often turns into a race to see who mates first. By my own classification, this branch sits in the ECO E97 to E99 range, though the specific numbers are never stated in the source document. For decades, the Mar del Plata has been tied to the biggest names in chess: Garry Kasparov, Bobby Fischer, and Judit Polgar in some unforgettable games. In the Indian market where I work, an audience that grew up with Viswanathan Anand has always kept a curiosity for openings like this. That is why a product teaching the Mar del Plata will always find buyers. But the story is not in the opening itself. It is in the ninth move. White plays 9.b4 — the Bayonet Attack thrust. This is the fashionable approach: White grabs space on the queenside, turning the b4-pawn into a dagger aimed at Black's structure. Black's orthodox reply is 9...Nh5 — the knight jumps to the rim, opens the position, and forces both sides into concrete lines. That is the "main move," the road most professional players still prepare. The product in the source document sells a different road: 9...a5. ANALYSIS: WHAT 9...a5 PROMISES, AND WITH WHAT Reading the description closely, I extract four core claims. First, 9...a5 is positioned as a practical "antidote" to the Bayonet Attack. Not a new move, not an invention, but a known branch few people use — a side road around the crowd. Second, its goal is to change the character of the game. After 9...Nh5, the game becomes forcing: concrete lines, long, requiring memory. After 9...a5, Black steers toward a strategic fight, with few forced lines, little to memorize. Third, the product claims both sides have equal chances. That is a positional claim, not a claim of theoretical superiority. Fourth, and this is the point that made me frown hardest: the product builds a contrast between human and computer. 9...Nh5 is said to "open the position, force the lines, and make computer analysis important again," while 9...a5 leads to "sound positions with very few concrete lines." Four claims. Not a single number. Based on my experience following games, this is the moment to stop and ask three questions that any opening-teaching product must be able to answer. One: Who is the author? The source document names no one. No title, no track record, not a single sample game in the Mar del Plata branch. Someone selling an "antidote" without telling you whom they have beaten with it is like a coach selling a pressing curriculum without ever having led a team. Two: How strong is 9...a5 in practice? No ACPL, no win rate, no draw rate, no database cited. This is a serious technical flaw. When someone says "very few concrete lines," we need to know how few "few" is. Five lines? Ten? Or does the author simply not want to provide a number to be checked against? Three: Does 9...a5 really avoid deep calculation? In my view, not entirely. The Mar del Plata is sharp no matter which branch you take. No road erases the computer from the game. This is where I separate "strategy" from "advertising." A product can promise to reduce memorization — that is not wrong as marketing. But if I am the buyer, I need evidence that this branch is viable at a high level, not just pleasant to hear. I have reviewed many Mar del Plata games as an observer, not as a player. What I found: the Bayonet branch remains the place where well-prepared players grab the advantage. If Black plays 9...a5 on inspiration without understanding the structure, this move can backfire faster than 9...Nh5. So where does the real value of 9...a5 lie? In my view, it lies in the element of surprise and in avoiding the opponent's familiar arsenal. That is psychological value, not superior theoretical value. And psychological value lasts only as long as the opponent has not prepared for it. Here I see a parallel with the football transfer market I still cover. There, agents create noise to inflate prices; here, an opening product creates noise to inflate expectations. Both are hidden costs for the end consumer — the chess student, the fan. Noise drowns out signal, and the real signal lives in the database, not in the advertising copy. Before spending money, a serious chess student should demand four things: the author's name and title; at least three sample games with engine evaluations attached; win and draw rates for the branch in recent databases; and a preview showing exactly the lines the product calls "few forced lines." Without all four, the buyer is paying for a belief, not a method. At the event level, the headline also gestures toward a team event in Samarkand, where "all top teams won despite close calls." But the body mentions no tournament, no round, no pairing, no result. This is an information-integrity failure, and it is enough for me to drop the credibility of the whole document to its lowest level. THE CONTRARIAN ANGLE: WHERE THE ARGUMENT SHAKES ITSELF One sentence made me pause longest: "computers often do not know how to handle the arising complex strategic positions." That sentence, in my view, is a leftover from a bygone era. It was true in the pre-AlphaZero era. Back then, engines evaluating move by move genuinely struggled with closed positions, with few forced lines, where the value of a long-term plan does not show up within a few moves. But the chess world passed that milestone long ago. Modern neural-network engines handle long-term Mar del Plata positions far better than that sentence implies. "A silent round of applause can kill emotion, but it cannot kill tactics." And a computer does not need applause. The second problem: 9...a5 is not a new move. It is a known side branch, and serious White players can absolutely find a response. "Antidote" is the seller's language, not the board's language. In opening theory, no antidote lasts forever — there is only one cycle, and then the other side finds the answer. The third problem: the promise of "no need to memorize" targets a very specific customer base — those who see themselves as independent players, not rote learners. That is identity-based marketing, not analysis-based marketing. It works commercially, but it does not help the buyer judge the true strength of the move. "Mistakes are not frightening; bending down to pick up the tape at 2 a.m. is what makes a forecaster." The mistake here is not teaching 9...a5. The mistake is selling it as destiny. WHAT TO KEEP If I had to bet, I would bet this: within one theory cycle, if 9...a5 appears more often in top events, there will be a wave of pushback from White. That is the law of openings — not a curse, just a cycle. For the buyer, the real value of this product lies at club level and international master level, not at the level of the leading grandmasters. It is a surprise weapon, not a refutation. And for me, the question still hangs there: if a product is confident enough to call itself an "antidote," why does it not dare to produce a single number to prove it?