Against the Bayonet, 9...a5 — One DVD, One Secondary Line, and the Silence of Evidence

Last week a coach from Nagpur called. He has four children between fourteen and fifteen who play the King's Indian Defence with the black pieces, and his question was direct — should he buy the new "Svitlana's Smart Moves" DVD, the one whose cover advertises a cure for the Bayonet Attack? I put the phone down and pulled out my old register, the sheet where I have logged every junior's birth year, school, coach and rating change since 2026. I wanted to know how many of the children I track had actually ever reached 9.b4.

The answer was four.

I found the result in row 214 before I trusted the headline. That is the real scale of this whole affair. India has thousands of club-level players who play the King's Indian Defence, but the ones who regularly enter the sharp Mar del Plata branch, and who actually face the Bayonet Attack across the board, form a thin layer. On the Indian junior circuit between 1400 and 1800, that layer is thinner still — most White players there open with the London, the Colle or a plain d4 system, and the game never arrives at the Mar del Plata at all. A prospect is a layer, not a highlight. The empty hall has told me more than the crowd ever did, and it did so here too.

Context: what the DVD is actually selling

First, the system. 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 e5 7.O-O Nc6 — this is the Mar del Plata, inside the ECO band E97 to E99. Black concedes central space, then strikes with ...e5 and rolls pawns up the kingside; White grabs space on the queenside. Both sides march at each other, and that is the nature of the branch — long preparation, opaque strategy, distant calculation.

White's modern main weapon is the Bayonet Attack, 9.b4. White takes ground on the queenside so that Black's kingside attack slows down. Black's direct answer is 9...Nh5, preparing ...f5 and ...Nf4 — fast, solid, and woven deep into theory.

The DVD proposes 9...a5 instead. The move is not new. It is a familiar, slower alternative to 9...Nh5 that settles ground on the queenside and turns the game toward long manoeuvring. The product claims that "computers do not understand" these positions, so the human player gains; and because the Bayonet has ruined the beauty of the Mar del Plata and 9...Nh5 collapses into forced calculation, you should choose 9...a5.

The logic is internally coherent, and it genuinely catches a real trade-off — "forcing lines that can be engine-checked" against "strategically opaque manoeuvring". I check the provenance before I praise the talent, and here the provenance is advertising copy, not independent review. The entire description is written in the language of a sales pitch — not in database output or a verified engine assessment.

Core: the gap between claims and numbers

Here is what stung most. The product description contains not a single number. No engine evaluation, no ACPL, no database count of how often the line has been played and with what result, no named model game, and not even the presenter's title or rating. For an opening-repertoire product this is a serious gap, because a repertoire's value lies not in its explanation but in its verification. There is no row in the rating list that verifies this DVD's claim.

Scope is the second thing. This product answers exactly one branch — 9.b4. In the Mar del Plata, White still has 9.Ne1 and 9.Nd2 fully alive and popular on move nine, and before that there are refinements such as 8.Be3 and 8.Re1 on move eight. One knot on a large tree. The product is fine in its own place; the trouble is in the impression created at the point of purchase — "a cure for the Bayonet" and "a complete answer to the Mar del Plata" are not the same thing. A player who buys it as a full repertoire will be left empty-handed against 9.Ne1.

The third thing is the pairing "objectively equal, but dangerous for White". This is an old advertising weapon in opening literature. On one side the buyer's fear is soothed that he is not buying a refuted line; on the other, hope is built that points will follow. Both can be true at once. But this description carries no evidence behind either — no engine assessment, no results split, not one sample game. The pairing is reassurance plus upside; the analytical conclusion arrives later, and here it never arrived.

The contrarian angle: "computers don't understand" is a dated argument

The sharpest objection has to be recorded here. "Computers cannot handle closed, strategic positions" is a heuristic from the 2026–2026 decade. Since 2026, engines using NNUE-based evaluation have become standard, and their grip on closed, slow, manoeuvring positions has grown enormously. The era in which that argument was built was the era of engine analysis; today's era is one of engine understanding.

Stranger still, the description collides with itself. In one place it says engines do not understand these positions; in another it concedes that after 9...Nh5 "computer analysis becomes important again". The author is admitting that engine mastery is the standard, and that 9...a5 is the escape route from it. The very weapon being used to sell the product is weakened inside the same text.

The second and more important issue is expectation mismatch. "Few concrete lines, strategy rather than calculation" — that promise works in reverse. In positions where nothing is forced, a decision is required on every move, and under clock pressure the weaker player loses his advantage exactly there. The product itself says these positions demand long-term planning and tactical sharpness — which reads to me not as "easier" but as "harder". For a player rated 1400 to 1800, that difference is the most expensive one on the board.

The Olympiad is in the title, and that too deserves checking. The Olympiad is a deep tournament — roughly 180 to 190 national teams, most of the world's top-100 players. As a source of model games it is a sound choice, and the Olympiad branding in the title is not borrowed prestige. But team matches carry result incentives; a draw is sometimes enough for the team, and such games tend to be less critical and more result-oriented. A repertoire built mainly on team-event games should be cross-checked against individual elite events. And the Olympiad comes once every two years — the content source refreshes on a two-year cycle while the engine meta shifts every few months.

One more thing is only nominal: the title says "King's Indian Attack" while the subject is the King's Indian Defence. The King's Indian Attack is a different system — 1.Nf3, g3, Bg2, d3. A player troubled by the Bayonet will search for "Defence", and a player who plays the KIA will open this thinking it is his. This is a naming error, and its price is paid in search discovery.

What to watch next

I am not dismissing this DVD. 9...a5 is a real, playable option, and for players who already own a complete King's Indian repertoire and want a different road against the Bayonet, a consolidated explanation in one place has genuine value. Lines like this grow in popularity at club level; changing practice at 2700 is a different matter. The least-served need in the repertoire market is exactly this — a player who wants to think rather than memorise. That demand is durable; this particular offering is not.

And one risk the buyer routinely forgets: a published "cure" quickly becomes a target. The day 9...a5 becomes popular, White will prepare specifically against it, and the "few concrete lines" advantage dissolves. The life of a static DVD is short against subscription-based, continuously updated repertoires. The product's fate will be decided less by its theory than by its packaging and its update channel.

Three things I will track over the coming months. First, the engine stability of 9...a5 — if current NNUE engines show a clear improvement for White at greater depth, the foundation of the claim itself shakes. Second, the line's presence in classical games rated 2650 and above; club-level popularity and top-level acceptance are two separate events, and the second moves far more slowly than the first. Third, White's preference on move nine — if the tilt grows toward 9.Ne1 and 9.Nd2, this product's entire market shrinks.

The numbers are footprints; the player is the ground they crossed. This DVD's footprints have not yet been made — no engine assessment, no game count, no results tally. I keep the quiet notes, because loud careers leave them behind. The question is not whether 9...a5 should be played. The question is this: when a secondary line is sold as a cure, who tells the buyer which illness it treats, and which it does not?