Positional play exercise (six questions)

next time you do this can it not be a Fianchetto system for black pretty pwease

I can't promise that

I just got this game from the book "how to become a candidate master" by alex dunne lol

very good book that i got for 1 dollar at a sale 

This would be an instructive one

Ignore that I missed e4+ on the last move i was trying to dirty flag him

I’m not a 2100

Although I can see why you would think of it that way considering blacks opening play

Here are my thoughts on the position

1. I think given Black's lack of space, defending the pawn with the Queen and preparing to castle long might be better. I don't see anything bad about this move though.

2. This move is bad because it allows black to gain some control in the center; leaving the tension was better, I think

3. I think the lack of squares for black's bishop, which also prevents them from connecting rooks, is annoying. However, they do have more space on the queenside, and does not seem to have any problems in the position. So over all, I'd say black is better.

4. I think this knight jump accomplishes nothing, and probably a mistake.

5. I think Qd2 was better, preparing c4 to reactivate white's pieces.

6. I'll admit, I don't really see how to punish this move, but it doesn't seem best.

This is standard modern defense stuff not norweigan 

ANSWERS:

1) Not a good move. White would like to wait before committing his bishop to either e2, d3, or c4, or b5. Meanwhile Nd2 is the only square for the knight. After black played ...e5 in the game, white's bishop on d3 looked silly.

2) What was the point of white playing c3 if he is to take on e5? White isn't playing logically.

3) Black is better by a bit. he has a long term advantage of the two bishops in a semi open position. His knight on h5 is a complete monster once it arrives on f4 compared to white's pathetic excuse of a piece on a3, which has no squares due to black's nice doubled pawns. White has the d file, but since all invasion squares are nicely defended, it is impossible do make any use of it.

4) Ng5 is terrible, accomplishes nothing. 

5) White's coordination is pretty horrible. Re3 lifts the rook right in the line of the g7 bishop, and cannot even double on the d file anyways. Best was to move white's queen and play Nc2-e3.

6) (nobody so far has said this) Black's Light squared bishop needs something to do. on c8 it currently cuts off the rooks and hinders black's own position. So h4 simply cedes g4 to the bishop for free, which i see no reason to do.

Norweigan allows e5 Nh5, while what was played in the game is d6 first, stopping e5 from white.

Yes, but you didn't explain why

not "develops a piece", you can't just develop for the sake of developing... That's how people go downhill against hypermodern openings

What I mean is a lot of times there are better moves than just developing a piece but ok

It's already bad that I have a cold. Now I run the risk of having a fever dream with this monstrosity in it

Wdym crackhead emote goated

Was going to post my answers after thinking for 15 minutes or so but then my kindle lagged and lost my answers... I'll just check them using what you've given because I don't wanna type them out and have this happen again.

1. Not particularly. The bishop isn't doing much on that square seeing as it's blocked in by the e4 pawn. Additionally, you could just defend the pawn with 6.Nbd2, which coordinates a piece to defend a pawn and fight for the center, then you can get the bishop out to the more useful square c4.

2. It's a bad move because after 8. exd5?! exd5, black has ideas with playing Qe2, which is support for getting the d7 knight to c5 which enables the light squared bishop to come out and gets the knight to a powerful square if the exchange of the bishop pair for a knight isn't made. Not to mention, this equalizes the amount of space in the center that white had previously dominated.

3. Evaluating this position is rather complex. Let's just look at key components in terms of evaluation: pawn structure, piece activity, space, and most importantly, king safety. In terms of pawn structure, white is undoubtedly better because he doesn't have the doubled pawns on the B file. Piece activity, it starts getting complex. White's rooks see through the open files and can start a battery down the D file whenever he wants with Qd2 or Qd3. But at the same time, his a3 knight is essentially out of the game and white's pieces don't seem to have a goal. For black, they have Kh8 and then the f5 break which can open his f rook and develop his light-square bishop with tempo on the queen. Also, his pieces have a goal of defending the pawn on e5. The thing is, this goal has its drawbacks. Black's dark-square bishop is only limited to controlling the d4 square. Also, their queen isn't doing anything on c7 and is limited to controlling the f4 square on its diagonal. So in terms of activity, things get murky. I'd personally prefer black, but really, it depends on the person and their style. Now for space. Black has a pretty strong bind on the opponent's central dark squares because of the e5 pawn, the bishop, the queen, and even the h5 knight which is seemingly doing nothing. Even black's a rook can be considered as a space grabber because of how it looks down the a4 and a3 square. White also have some points for space, like the D rook patrolling the open central file and his pretty strong light-squared bind on black's side. Personally, in terms of space, I'd play black. Now for the most important part, king safety. Definitely black. If they were to carry out with the aforementioned Kh8 f5 plan, they could free up the e4 square for their pawn, which opens up the queen and the bishop. Eventually, they could use this sudden avalanche of activated pieces to launch a king side attack. Now, the final score. We're counting king safety as 2 points because of how important it is. With all the counting done, it's 4-1 for black. Black wins the analysis!

4. That's actually a decent move. It's a simple move with a simple idea. The knight's here to bait black into potentially weakening his pawns, and if they didn't fall for the bait, then white would be able to get his pieces into an attack. I'd annotate it with nothing because it's a threat, but the threat isn't much of a threat assuming black takes the bait. The dark-squared bishop, I'm assuming, won't really go anywhere soon, so either it's a really long-term idea or just a "haha now i can try for the h6 pawn" thing. Also, if black does take the bait, then white wastes a tempo.

5. Looks like white wants to forget about their original idea of weakening black's pawn structure and go for a d file battery after Kh2 then g3, kicking the decent f4 knight out of here. It's a decent idea. That knight has so much space controlled on white's side of the board, so you should get rid of it. But the thing is, there's a better idea for white here. That idea is the c4 break, the idea being threatening to get the knight in there to cause damage on black's queen side pawns after 20. c4 bxc4 Nxc4. Now black's rook is glued to the A file because if it ever leaves, white can go up and win one or both queen side pawns. This also brings the knight back into the game.

6. White just wasted a move. First off, what business does that pawn have with being on h4? Second off, it does nothing about Bh6 which removes the limits of the dark-square bishop. Third off, it does nothing about the light-squared bishop about to finally be activated with Bg4. In fact, when the exchange of knight for bishop happens, black wins a pawn unless if g3 is played, which weakens the light squares around the king so fricking much.

That's all the questions answered. I spent over an hour writing this so hopefully I get them all correct.

Make more of these!

yes please!