Does the King's Indian Attack need the e5 pawn push to attack on the kingside? So from what I understand, a kingside attack can be started as long as the centre is closed.
I very recently started looking into the King's Indian Attack as an opening for white against the French and e6 Sicilians, but since I don't see many of either of those at the 1500 level on chess.com, I have only been able to try it out this one game.
Draws are very rare at my level but I just didn't know what to do by move 29 with my attacking chances completely gone and I guess neither did my opponent.
This is the game:
[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]
[FEN &quot;&quot;]
[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]
[Date &quot;2021.04.06&quot;]
[Round &quot;-&quot;]
[White &quot;Me&quot;]
[Black &quot;Black&quot;]
[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]
[CurrentPosition &quot;r3r3/1bp3p1/1pn2p1k/p3pPpP/3pP1P1/P2P1BN1/1PP2K1R/7R b - -&quot;]
[Timezone &quot;UTC&quot;]
[ECO &quot;B00&quot;]
[UTCDate &quot;2021.04.06&quot;]
[UTCTime &quot;07:50:38&quot;]
[WhiteElo &quot;1506&quot;]
[BlackElo &quot;1443&quot;]
[TimeControl &quot;600&quot;]
[Termination &quot;Game drawn by agreement&quot;]
[StartTime &quot;07:50:38&quot;]
[EndDate &quot;2021.04.06&quot;]
[EndTime &quot;07:59:52&quot;]

1. e4 Nc6 2. Nf3 e6 3. d3 d6 4. g3 Nf6 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. Re1 e5 8. Nbd2
Re8 9. h4 h6 10. Nf1 Bf8 11. Ne3 d5 12. Nh2 d4 13. Nef1 Ne7 14. f4 Nc6 15. f5 b6
16. g4 Nh7 17. Nf3 Be7 18. h5 Ng5 19. Bd2 Bb7 20. Qc1 Nxf3+ 21. Bxf3 Bg5 22. Ng3
Bxd2 23. Qxd2 Qg5 24. Qxg5 hxg5 25. Kf2 Kh7 26. a3 a5 27. Rh1 Kh6 28. Rh2 f6 29.
Rah1 1/2-1/2 

So is the reason this was so terrible because I missed some great continuation, or does the attack just not work when I don't have a pawn on e5, since I started reading King's Indian Attack Move by Move by Neil McDonald and he puts quite a bit of emphasis on it. So if I commit to the KIA with 3.d3 and my opponent plays 3...d6, not allowing any e5 push, I should just open up the position and be left with a slightly worse opening?
I felt like my worst blunder was basically just creating an outpost for the black knight on g5 but even before that I didn't seem to be getting anywhere. Could anyone help me understand why this went so terribly and how I should know for next time that a kingside attack isn't a good idea?
It's not the KIA at fault (in fact we saw here a color-reversed KID) but you both
lacked when it comes to positional play.

In the end position, Black is far better. He can act the standard queenside pawnroller while you don't have the slightest attacking counterplay, and a horribly bad bishop.
But since so much material has been traded, Black probably didn't have the nerve to press on. (I would have, but then, I tend to win all endgames :-) Specifically, c4 is his only decent plan and you can hope to throw off the bishop.
Specifically, what went wrong was that you were &quot;forced&quot; to h5, after that all breakthroughs go through the window. Given that you stand so bad after that, I had played g5 nevertheless and at least got some open lines for the pawn.
You could have avoided to be &quot;forced&quot; by carefully preparing the attack: king to f2 and place a dozen rooks behind your pawn roller. Shall he argue with that. (Likewise, Black should have uncompromisingly rolled on the queenside. In KID, you must queen a few pawns and sacrifice the queens against the material that wants to mate you ;-)
I'm not even sure if f5 wasn't a bit early.
So, get the &quot;Kmoch&quot; (argueably, a bit ancient - the new &quot;Shankland&quot; is also nice) and learn about pawn play (especially levers). Get the &quot;Vukovic&quot; (likewise ancient) to learn how to attack a castled position, especially when to storm with pawns and when to attack with pieces. The good news is: Positional play will come automatically to you the more you learn and the more pattern you encounter. Practice.