More Lessons From Master Games

Last time, we started to analyze the old game Charousek-Alapin and learned a useful trick that can be used in variety of openings.

As a rule, you can learn more than just one idea from a game played by a strong player. Let's see what else we can squeeze from just one game.

Notice the position after White's 11th move:

White's Ne5 is beautifully placed in the center and well supported by two pawns: d4 and f4. It leaves Black in a lose-lose situation. He can choose to either tolerate such a strong knight or trade it. But after the trade White's pawn f4 moves to e5, which further improves White's position in the center and opens the f-file for White to attack Black's king.  

Even if Black didn't blunder the pawn, his position was very dangerous already.

See the modern examples where the identical opening setup was played:

You can argue that the last two games are the Nimzo Indian Defense and you don't play it, so how can you use this setup? OK, how about the famous Pillsbury Attack in the Queen's Gambit?

You don't play the classical Queen's Gambit either? Then how about the Queen Pawn Game?

You never open the game with 1.d4? Well, nobody's perfect! Check out these games where White played 1.e4:

Do you see what's going on here?

Despite all the different openings, the strategic picture is always the same: White has a strong position in the center, which helps him to start an attack on the kingside!

The great feature of this aggressive setup is that Black can do it too!

So we have just learned another very useful attacking idea that you can use in your games. 

It is amazing how much knowledge can be gained from just one old game by Rudolf Charousek! Fortunately he played many more games, so next time we'll see what else we can learn.