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Opposite Side Castling: The Basics, Part 2

Opposite Side Castling: The Basics, Part 2

spassky
| 9 | Strategy

In part 1 of this article (http://www.chess.com/article/view/opposite-side-castling-the-basics), I showed a game where the kingside attack was conducted using pieces to open up the pawn cover on Black's kingside.  In part 2, I show a game with the same exact opening where White uses a pawn storm to accomplish the same idea.

Note how White never stopped trying to open lines against the Black king.  Even though White never acheived his primary objective of opening the h-file, Black had to make concessions in order to keep it closed, and they allowed White to force the g-file open, with equally deadly effect.  Sometimes you can't tell ahead of time which file will become open, because the pawn structure on the kingside is still flexible and can prevent the opening of a given line.  In that case, you have to threaten to open one file, force your opponent to close it, and take advantage of the resulting inflexibility of the pawn structure to force open a different line and then proceed to regroup your pieces and work with the new open line.  It's a rare case when everthing goes according to plan.  It's like painting a picture in which your opponent gets paint every other stroke.  You just have to incorporate his stokes into the picture and still try to create a masterpiece.
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