How would you handle this position?

[TexAg06]

I was playing a G/30 on ICC earlier tonight and arrived at the following position after white's 13.Ng3. I played black and thought for quite a while here, not exactly sure of the best way to proceed. There is some interesting minor piece tension and as black, I'm not sure which pieces are best to keep and which are ok to trade, and the following plan from there. Obviously it's some sort of typical Slav e5/c5 break, but what do you do with your minors?

This isn't a tactical puzzle, I'm just more looking for general positional thoughts in hopes of learning something.

[John_Douglas]

After Bg6 White can play Nh4 and remove the Bishop, so probably Bg4 is better. If White plays Be2 to break the pin, then Bb4 looks ok to relieve the pressure on the a5 pawn.

The other option is to play Bxg3 and Ne4, but I don't like it because White can just play Be1 and I don't know where Black's play is going.

[Noir_Desir]

it' often worth considering to leave the bishop on f5, the resulting pawn-structure has certain pluses. It all depends on black's control of e4, which i would say is pretty good. Usually in such a structure white's remaining knight would be placed on c3, because the bishop is exchanged via Nf3-h4. I'd say the difference favours black.

OTOH, Bg4 certainly looks annoying for white, so i would chose this move and try to follow up with a quick ...e5.

[John_Douglas]

Originally Posted by Noir_Desir

it' often worth considering to leave the bishop on f5, the resulting pawn-structure has certain pluses. It all depends on black's control of e4, which i would say is pretty good. Usually in such a structure white's remaining knight would be placed on c3, because the bishop is exchanged via Nf3-h4. I'd say the difference favours black.

OTOH, Bg4 certainly looks annoying for white, so i would chose this move and try to follow up with a quick ...e5.

Yes, it's definitely an option to play, for example 1...Ne4 and give up the Bishop. In fact, that's maybe the best option if Black wants to keep a complicated position and play for a win.

[Do it Right]

Great position. I feel like I'm certainly lacking in these sort of positions where there are so many possible plans that it's difficult to pick just one. At a glance the 'obvious' plans to aim for seem to be:

1. breaks:
1a. e5: The main threat here would be to play e4 with the idea of getting what I always call a 'Fischer attack' - the type he excelled at in the KIA where a pawn on e5 for white or e4 black works to cramp's the opponents pieces. Fischer - Panno 1970 being a model game (http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044324) If black exchanges on e5 then our pieces gain more mobility and our queenside majority becomes even stronger. So this seems like a reasonable abstract plan to aim for.

1b. The b5 break. This seems pointless as if white simply ignores it when we have create a massive weakness on the c file for no real compensation .

1c. The c5 break - again I'm not terribly fond of this since it would leave our queenside dark squares pretty airy.

So it looks like of our longterm structure plans, e5 is the winner. Ok so onto the short term. Right now the main threat from white is centered around your light bishop so we need to deal with that. There seems to be a couple of major choices there:

1. Ignore it - Ne4. On 1. .. Ne4 2. Nxf5 exf5 we have a rock solid central position and black tries to eject it at any time by f3 then his kingside would stand to become very weak very fast. On the other hand I'm not sure how we can further improve our position. This seems like it can't be bad but I'm not too fond of it simply because I don't see good plan for black after that if white just started 'passing'.

2. Avoid it - Bg6. 1. .. Bg6 2. Nh4?! can be met with Be4 when 3. Nxe4 Nxe4 4. Nf3 Nxd2 looks slightly better for black and we can get back to our e5 plan. This seems good. I'm not sure I see a way for white to create an initiative aside from 2. Nh4. 2. Qb3 can be met simply by Rfb8 when black's is starting to get even more play.

So that wraps up the short and longterm. Bg6 it is. But I really am not terribly happy about it in any case. I feel like I struggle more than I should in these sort of positions.

[Do it Right]

Originally Posted by Noir_Desir

...


OTOH, Bg4 certainly looks annoying for white, so i would chose this move and try to follow up with a quick ...e5.

I assume planning Bxg3 on h3?

[TexAg06]

My thought process during the game was almost a direct combination of Noir_Desir and John Douglas's first posts. A plan involving Ne4 looks tempting because the knight seems well-placed, but I couldn't find follow-up play. White doesn't really have any other weaknesses and black has no open files that coordinate with the knight's position.

In the game, I played 13...Bg4 and play continued 14.Be2 Rfd8 15.Qb3 Bxg3 16.fxg3 e5 when white can't take on b7 because of ...e4. White did have some pressure on f7 after opening the f-file, but I'm not sure it's enough to compensate for the weaknesses made by capturing with the f-pawn.

DiR, your saying you struggle in these kinds of positions where there are so many available plans is exactly why I posted this position, I'm in the same boat. So many moves look equally appealing and it's difficult to choose one because it's tough to think about trading a minor piece or pushing pawns that might create weaknesses when the game could take so many different paths. I put this position and further variations into an engine last night just to see what it thought, and it had 4 moves that it evaluated all about equal, all within 0.1 pts of each other.

In positions like this, with many available plans and no clear direction the game is heading, a strong player told me to choose the plan you feel is best and play vigorously to that end. The worst thing you can do (obviously not the worst, blundering is the worst) is to get unconfident, combine/mix plans because of indecisiveness, and play with some half-hearted, disjointed plan. Just stick with what you decided and do your best to mold the course of the game to highlight your imbalances, whatever they may be. Easier said than done of course, I'm just passing along advice from people much stronger than me

[Noir_Desir]

Originally Posted by Do it Right

I assume planning Bxg3 on h3?

probably yes. But i haven't looked at all the consequences in detail.

[ohsnapzbrah]

Without looking at other replies, I would seriously consider Bxg3 here. It looks strange, I know, trading perhaps our best piece for a sidelined knight. But after this, white will have some major holes on e4 and d5. Ironically, the f6 knight could immediately jump to e4 and your d7 knight can jump to f6 for support. If he takes with the f pawn (fxg3), your knight will be better than the bishop we just gave up and he will have no way of getting rid of it. If he takes with the h pawn (hxg3), then his kingside becomes crippled, and you can tie his knight and dark-squared bishop down with Bg4 and Ne4.

With knights on d5 and e4, or even just e4 heavily supported, his dark-squared bishop becomes terrible. We can eventually pin his knight and make that piece pretty useless. Another plus about this plan is that in order to liberate the knights from e4 (and/or d5), he would eventually have to get rid of his best minor piece, his light-squared bishop. This would leave us with either a dominant bishop on e4 or a dominant knight on e4 vs his bad bishop on d2. Mix that with his bad pawn structure, and it looks like enough to drag out a win. Just my 2 cents behind it.

In before TL;DR

[John_Douglas]

Originally Posted by ohsnapzbrah

Without looking at other replies, I would seriously consider Bxg3 here. It looks strange, I know, trading perhaps our best piece for a sidelined knight. But after this, white will have some major holes on e4 and d5. Ironically, the f6 knight could immediately jump to e4 and your d7 knight can jump to f6 for support. If he takes with the f pawn (fxg3), your knight will be better than the bishop we just gave up and he will have no way of getting rid of it. If he takes with the h pawn (hxg3), then his kingside becomes crippled, and you can tie his knight and dark-squared bishop down with Bg4 and Ne4.

With knights on d5 and e4, or even just e4 heavily supported, his dark-squared bishop becomes terrible. We can eventually pin his knight and make that piece pretty useless. Another plus about this plan is that in order to liberate the knights from e4 (and/or d5), he would eventually have to get rid of his best minor piece, his light-squared bishop. This would leave us with either a dominant bishop on e4 or a dominant knight on e4 vs his bad bishop on d2. Mix that with his bad pawn structure, and it looks like enough to drag out a win. Just my 2 cents behind it.

In before TL;DR

I mentioned this plan, but I don't like it.

It's not enough just to have your Knights on good squares. You also need a plan. After Bxg3 hxg3 Ne4 Be1 I just don't see what Black is doing. Be1 probably isn't even that great a move, but it just illustrates the point.

Of course, it's still ok for Black, but I want more if I'm going to give away my dark squared bishop.

[alscai]

I just looked at the position quickly without setting up the position, so these are more general considerations. I wasn't planning to post but seeing that others' ideas are quite different from mine, I'll throw in my 2 cents:

1. You mention the slav and the e5/c5 breaks. one of the reasons for these breaks is that black, in a typical QGA is cramped, especially the QB, and so these pawn breaks are to gain space. In this instance, however, you've already freed your QB from your pawn strx, so at least part of the purpose of c5/e5 is no longer an issue.

2. If we're going to give up Bf5 for N, I'd rather it be the Nf3, which is better placed, than the Ng3, which is relatively poorly placed. As a result, I don't mind Bg6 14. Nh4 and 15. Nxg6 hxg6.

A sample line might be: Bg6 14. Nh4 Rfd8 15. Nxg6 hxg6. I agree that Nh4 is probably a mistake.

Also, compared to the Slav, we have the awkward a4 a5 thrown in, so we have to be aware of the weak pawn on a5. With a c5 break, you then have a hole on b5 that's normally not there in the Slav.

Another observation: White has transferred a N over to the K-side, plus if he plays Bc3 both bishops will have intentions of K side attack, but his pawn structure isn't really a K side attacking type of set-up unless he can play f4-5 and/or e4-5. Black's best defense against this type of plan is to pressure the center--d file control.

That's as far as I got...

[ohsnapzbrah]

Originally Posted by John_Douglas

I mentioned this plan, but I don't like it.

It's not enough just to have your Knights on good squares. You also need a plan. After Bxg3 hxg3 Ne4 Be1 I just don't see what Black is doing. Be1 probably isn't even that great a move, but it just illustrates the point.

Of course, it's still ok for Black, but I want more if I'm going to give away my dark squared bishop.

My plan would be to get one of the knights to e4 and get the f or h pawn on g3. It'd leave us with one knight vs white's dark-squared bad bishop. He wouldn't be able to chase the knight away either without leaving a huge hole in his kingside.

Once we got into a position like that, I feel like we could storm our queenside majority down the board into a won endgame. But I'm not totally sure on that.

[Leavenfish]

1...Ne4
Not a computer answer for sure. Here is Blacks 'problem': the two knights. If white takes on f5 (and even if he doesn't), Nd7 - f6 follows with the idea of a knigside attack.