Greetings fellow chess players! Since this is my very first blog, I think it is only fitting for me to preface this post with a little bit of my personal history. I'm a National Master, and have been playing chess for about a decade now. In fact, I have been playing the Caro-Kann for just as long as I have been playing the game itself. I was first introduced to the opening when I was at a scholastic tournament, at the ripe age of eleven years old. Suffice to say, I did not have the opening preparation of a National Master. Actually, I only knew one opening, and it was the four-move checkmate for White! So, given the black pieces in my first round game, I had no idea what to do. My eyes darting around the room for inspiration, I quickly settled on what appeared to my innocent eyes to be the best move I had ever seen. 1...c6!!! Cautious not to fall into my own four-move checkmate trap with the Black pieces, I tried it out. Sure enough, it worked! Although I'm sure I got nothing except for the first move right, the "gambit" paid off and I secured my first win in the Caro-Kann. Ever since that day, I have continued to play the Caro-Kann with great success. As the first love of my life, my beloved Caro has made appearances at Scholastic Nationals Tournaments, the National Open, North American Open, you name it! As a player and a coach, I firmly believe that students should try and learn openings that they are passionate about. For me, that was the Caro-Kann. For you, it might be different; nonetheless, take your passion and run with it. Whether it's the Dutch (which I also frequent), the Bird's Opening, or even the admittedly suspect Dragondorf, passion in itself accounts for at least a +1 advantage
. So, without further adeu, I present to you a recent game I had in the Caro-Kann, played about eight years after I first laid eyes on the opening.
In my opinion, this is the first critical moment of the game! Though it may not appear crucial at first glance, it is important to understand just what I, as Black, am doing here. 1.e4 followed by 2.f4 is a very strange opening choice; yet, there is definitely not the first time I have encountered it on chess.com (Note: I have never once encountered this f4 system in tournament play!). However, no matter how unorthodox, it's still important to come up with a plan. By playing 3.h5, I am signaling to my opponent my intentions: to take control of the light squares. Namely, f5 and g4, which I poise my pieces to occupy by plunking a Bishop down on g4 and positioning my Knight on h6, with the intent of jumping into f5. As you will see in the game, having a pawn on h5 proved to be grately beneficial when I followed through with my eventual plan to push "Harry!"
As you can see here, I had three main goals for this part of the game: 1) Push Harry down the board, creating a wedge on the kingside which I could possibly exploit either in an endgame (if I win the h2 pawn) or in the middlegame (if I can create mating threats on the light squares); 2) Get some more space on the queenside with c5, Nc6, and Qb6; and 3) 0-0-0!!, getting my king to safety and indicating by my opposite-side castling that I'm ready for a fight!
This phase of the game can also be best understood by breaking it into plans: 1) Get my king (even more!) out of danger by running to a8; 2) Undermine White's grip on the center (f4-e5 pawn chain) with g5; 3) Pushing my brave g-pawn up to g4 in order to tighten my light-square grip; and 4) Re-routing my queen from b6 to a4, where it becomes an extremely useful attacking asset on the queenside. Once my queen got to a4, the rest of the game was relatively straightforward. Feel free to take a brief look at the entire game, so as to understand all of the ideas previously mentioned in the context of the whole. Here it is. Enjoy!
. So, without further adeu, I present to you a recent game I had in the Caro-Kann, played about eight years after I first laid eyes on the opening.
