In the previous lesson about counterplay, it was seen that to defend as best as possible, you have to create your own winning chances. This can be really scary and very tricky to do, so many people just choose to be as solid as possible and not preparing any sort of counter attack. But this falls into the better side being able to win much more easily!
Yes. Being very solid when defending can very often lose you the game, as often you forget about your pieces activity. It is hard to believe, I mean, after all, surely if both sides have just as many pieces as each other, then being solid can defend well?
But this is a very big misconception. By staying very solid and just waiting in the position, you allow your opponent to have the first strike. They don't need to rush, so they can just improve their position incrementally making tiny improvements before carrying out their main plans. If you wait, it is effectively as if they have been given many many tempi, and a lot more possibilities. With more pieces on the board, more tricks remain up their sleeve!
For instance, in one of my games, my opponent had desperately brought many pieces into the defence, but had allowed me to build up an attack by doing so:
From this game, we can see one thing: after white had done all the defending they could for their kingside, they had nothing left to do as they had no counterplay! But as black, I was able to strengthen almost every single piece before tearing the position open. Staying passive and waiting for your opponent to do something is not the way to defend positions (unless they are very specific ones) because you have to give up a huge amount of tempi by waiting for them to strike.
It was not exactly like they had no counterplay in the opening, but more to do with the fact that they didn't use any counterplay they had at all (although it was minimal)!
This being said, restricting counterplay can be a very powerful technique, which some players (such as the legendary Anatoly Karpov) make careers out of! Below is possibly Karpov's greatest positional game, where his opponent couldn't even get a single viable plan:
Whether not finding the right counterplay or being able to obtain any, it is clear that none of us want to ever be in such a position! While engines will make a fool of you by calling them equal, you must remember that you may have to take quite a few risks to avoid getting constricted (but that does not mean playing bad moves). After all, as seen in the first game, being super solid is not going to work unless you actively try to do something as you can loose a dangerous amount of tempi by doing this. Even just making an effort to try and remove good pieces in their position through trades is better than trying to defend with as many pieces as possible.
As shown in the Karpov game, sometimes before going ahead with your plan, it can be much better to reduce your opponent's counterplay to nothing. The best way to do this is to remove your opponent's pawn breaks on the side where they have more space, and start your plan after this. Positional squeezes take a very long time to master as even the slightest activity handed to your opponent will make your life a lot more difficult, but this a good technique to keep in mind when your opponent has no plans whatsoever.
In the previous lesson about counterplay, it was seen that to defend as best as possible, you have to create your own winning chances. This can be really scary and very tricky to do, so many people just choose to be as solid as possible and not preparing any sort of counter attack. But this falls into the better side being able to win much more easily!
Yes. Being very solid when defending can very often lose you the game, as often you forget about your pieces activity. It is hard to believe, I mean, after all, surely if both sides have just as many pieces as each other, then being solid can defend well?
But this is a very big misconception. By staying very solid and just waiting in the position, you allow your opponent to have the first strike. They don't need to rush, so they can just improve their position incrementally making tiny improvements before carrying out their main plans. If you wait, it is effectively as if they have been given many many tempi, and a lot more possibilities. With more pieces on the board, more tricks remain up their sleeve!
For instance, in one of my games, my opponent had desperately brought many pieces into the defence, but had allowed me to build up an attack by doing so:
From this game, we can see one thing: after white had done all the defending they could for their kingside, they had nothing left to do as they had no counterplay! But as black, I was able to strengthen almost every single piece before tearing the position open. Staying passive and waiting for your opponent to do something is not the way to defend positions (unless they are very specific ones) because you have to give up a huge amount of tempi by waiting for them to strike.
It was not exactly like they had no counterplay in the opening, but more to do with the fact that they didn't use any counterplay they had at all (although it was minimal)!
This being said, restricting counterplay can be a very powerful technique, which some players (such as the legendary Anatoly Karpov) make careers out of! Below is possibly Karpov's greatest positional game, where his opponent couldn't even get a single viable plan:
Whether not finding the right counterplay or being able to obtain any, it is clear that none of us want to ever be in such a position! While engines will make a fool of you by calling them equal, you must remember that you may have to take quite a few risks to avoid getting constricted (but that does not mean playing bad moves). After all, as seen in the first game, being super solid is not going to work unless you actively try to do something as you can loose a dangerous amount of tempi by doing this. Even just making an effort to try and remove good pieces in their position through trades is better than trying to defend with as many pieces as possible.
As shown in the Karpov game, sometimes before going ahead with your plan, it can be much better to reduce your opponent's counterplay to nothing. The best way to do this is to remove your opponent's pawn breaks on the side where they have more space, and start your plan after this. Positional squeezes take a very long time to master as even the slightest activity handed to your opponent will make your life a lot more difficult, but this a good technique to keep in mind when your opponent has no plans whatsoever.