King's Indian Defence: fashion victim?

Martin Seeber writes for Chess Tales:

I was playing chess in the afternoon with my friend Roger, our top blogger. We even had a nice Czech beer to help the brains work better. Roger's a big fan of the King's indian so by game 3 I played d4 and we were on his battleground. I played g3 and advanced the centre pawns. Roger then announced that he had seen it all before or similar, it was an excellent practice game, first he dominated on the Queenside and then I hit back with a pawn sac. He played really well and I lost. Roger identified the game which was similar, it was Botvinnik vs Tal, once he mentioned it I remembered it too. When I got home I looked at my books, he was right, but of course Tal played it better than Rog! Botvinnik placed his queen on d3 instead of e2 but later it went back. I checked my theory book and it wasn't there- that's seriously out of fashion. I suppose it's not smart to tread a pathway where a world champion got murdered.

I think the King's indian is starting to fade as one of the top openings. I play it myself as black and its because I wanted to follow Fischer and Kasparov, not that I have any chance of playing like them but it's rather that their play has sprinkled magic dust on the board and one battlefield you remember is the King's Indian. Copy some of the moves and its like your recalling the action, remember when you're ten and its football and you are the players, we used to pick them, my friend was Pele and I was Alan Ball and when we scored we'd shout PELEEE!

The openings too complicated for me but who cares. It gives a disadvantage for black, that's okay we all play for fun don't we.

Getting back to my opening remark. None of the top players seem to play it and now Garry has left the world game maybe the young will grow up on slav defences and different Sicilians to the Najdorf. When Kramnik killed Garry Kasparov in the King's Indian could that have been the end of a chapter for the opening?

Then I checked back on famous moments in the opening:

Tal - Fischer, Bobby took a Tal pawn and asked him to prove it, well he did and its one of the best games ever.

Piket- Kasparov with Garry sacking on g3 with the black knight.

Okay its an addiction, maybe I'll leave the Slav alone for another year!

Martin