Hi everyone! I hope some players rated 2000+ may help me out with this opening (or to be honest any help from anyone would be appreciated). i have been looking around for uncommon (but playable) openings in response to 1. d4, and i think i have found my answer- the Dutch Defence. the problem is however is i dont know anything about this opening (apart from the fact there are 2 main variations, the Stonewall Defence and the Leningrad Variation). could somebody give me the idea behind the opening so that i may be able to play it sucessfully?

Cheers,
Ravi

I don't know the ideas either but you can join this group: http://www.chess.com/groups/view/dynamic-dutch-defense

Hope this helps!

The long-term strategy behind the dutch defense is to build up an attack slowly on the kingside. How this attack is executed however depends a bit on which setup your using.

What I would recommend doing is to start with playing the stonewall dutch. The reason why you should begin with this one, is basically because it usually leads to 'pure' dutch strategy. Also it's almost necessary to know how to play a stonewall if you want to play the other setups since they often tends to lead into a type of stonewall formation (especially the classical dutch).

Some typical ideas in the stonewall dutch can be:

• Try to go for a kingside attack.

This can be done with moves like:
Qe8-h5/g6. A very common queen maneuver in the dutch where the queen swings around to an active place on the kingside.

f4! This is really like the key-break in the dutch in general which is designed to both blast your opponents kingside and increase the mobility of your own pieces, very often this move comes as a sacrifice.

g5-g4 (pawn-storm on the kingside). Is often very possible in the stonewall since you have such great control over the center. Often black playes Kh8 before he playes this idea to prepare a square for the rook on g8 and make the king safer.

• Try to keep your darksquared bishop
Since you have placed all your pawns on lightsquares that bishop of course becomes your "good" bishop which defends all the important darksquares you have weakened by placing all your pawns on lightsquares.

• Try to activate your lightsqaured bishop.
White's dream in the dutch would be to get an endgame position where black has hes bad lightsquared bishop left blocked by all those pawns and white a knight which would completely dominate the whole board (Good knight vs Bad bishop). Therefore it's often quite important to try and get this bishop into play. It can either be activated with the typical maneuver Bd7-e8-h5 where it often trades it selfs for a knight on f3. Or black activates it by playing b6, c5 (very important strategy to know!) which also gives black more space.

• Have control over e4!
The e4 square is very important in the dutch and if white is able to open the position with this move black is most likely going to be worse. Often black sticks a knight into this square which is a very important idea in the dutch. The move Ne4 usually prevents white from achieving hes desired break and also the knight helps in a kingside attack. "If you don't know what to do in the dutch stick a knight into e4, it's very likely that it's the best move on the board!" - GM Neil Mcdonald