The Process of Decision Making in Chess Volume 2: Practice positions and solutions. Position 8.7

Solve for white:

Diagram 8.7- clearly, black’s long pawn chain restricts white’s knight and bishop; however, white hasn’t said his final word yet in this position.
Challenge: how can white guarantee breaking black’s pawn chain?

b5 first move?

pb5

Is there anything to be gained by Bxe4?

thinking outside the box but that's a lot of extra

Knight xe4 followed by bishop xe4 with a double attack on f3 and h7. Black moves knight to g5 protecting both pawns and attacking the bishop and h3. White moves bishop to f5 protecting h3 and later h4 and push the knight back...and black will eventually lose its f3 pawn also and white will have a chain of pawns to push toward promotion

I agree that it has to be a knight and bishop combination.  I thought Bxe4 or Nex4 was good, but Ng5 would protect/attack both advanced pawns.  how about Bb3 and go after the d5 pawn?  The black knight cannot protect this pawn.  If we play 1. Bb3, xxxx 2. Nxd5 cxd5 3. Bxd5 we win the knight.

@AaronGo We both have similar ideas. With your suggestion, black can move his knight to g5 and we either protect h3 with our king or advance to h4 and kick the knight away and then whites bishop can pick up the remainder of the black pawns. I did suggest and give a solution to black knight to g5 also in my original message

Can anyone tell me how to reply to someone's message directly like AaronGo did with me?

@cheeseplease to the left of the message number, which is on the top right of the message itself, there is a quote mark. Use it to quote that message into yours. 

Sweet, cheers Phil, hey do you give us a final say on these chess position challenges? 

I find the solution is much easier when someone tells me "what is the best move."  I know that there is a solution.  If only, I would have this type of coaching OTB. ha.

@RuleDomain , often the computer solution is not the "practical" solution, in case there is more than one solution that achieves a winning position or certain positional goals. 

This is why I don't recommend using the computer for analysis, because you don't learn the process of identifying goals and coming up with plans from the answer it gives you. 

By applying the system we use to identify goals, based on advantages and problems in a position, you can come up with the correct solution, as some did in this thread.

If you are slightly more advanced in your understanding of chess theory, and are able to identify more complex goals, it can help you find an additional plan, or understand the computer's plan by "reverse-engineering".

Bottom line, in this position the goal was given already in the assignment, to fight against the pawn chain, and any plan that achieves this without serious drawbacks would be a good practical solution. 

Remember that in chess, a perfectionist approach based on the hope to match the computer solutions as much as possible, is counter-productive and not educational. 

Using the analysis board, especially in a case as you describe here, where you are not happy with your current calculation ability, will also be counter-productive. Instead, you should train yourself with only real calculation. Anything else will make your brain work in a mode that is used while using the analysis board, and you will not improve. This takes into account that the process of change means that maybe, at the beginning, the results will naturally drop, because you are not using that external help. But we are not here for immediate results, but rather improvement, and the results will catch up. 

Remember, you only learn by challenges. Analysis board, computer analysis, openings memorization, are counter-productive to the learning process in these cases. 

b5 breaks the base of black's pawn chain.