While I almost never - if ever - encountered a fully fledged "Flexible Dragon Restrained" with the plan of castling long, bolstering e4 with f3 and advancing the kingside pawns in OTB play with long time controls, I see myself often confronted with berserk pawn activity on the kingside in blitz games. All the more important it is to remember the correct defense without having to think too long.
(BTW I have the feeling that through some trickle-down effect, early outside pawn advances that seem to become more popular in GM play recently also appear more often on lower levels. Of course, it makes a difference whether a GM plays an early h4 or a4 with a plan in mind or an amateur just tosses in the move because they "thought they could play positional chess like a grandmaster", as Andrea Botez once put it so nicely, but a loaded gun can be deadly also in the hands of an amateur, or even more so.)
As the respective lines are a bit scattered in The Modern Tiger, I will try to compile the most important variations in a little series of posts.
I am intending to classify the material into three groups:
1. White plays g4 before or without h4
This is comparatively rare but not less dangerous and it is important to react precisely.
2. White plays h4 before or without g4
This is the main complex of lines.
3. White plays h4 outside the typical Flexible Dragon Restrained set-up
These are rarer lines where there is less to fear but still it's important to know how to cope with is somewhat speculative early h-pawn push.
While I almost never - if ever - encountered a fully fledged "Flexible Dragon Restrained" with the plan of castling long, bolstering e4 with f3 and advancing the kingside pawns in OTB play with long time controls, I see myself often confronted with berserk pawn activity on the kingside in blitz games. All the more important it is to remember the correct defense without having to think too long.
(BTW I have the feeling that through some trickle-down effect, early outside pawn advances that seem to become more popular in GM play recently also appear more often on lower levels. Of course, it makes a difference whether a GM plays an early h4 or a4 with a plan in mind or an amateur just tosses in the move because they "thought they could play positional chess like a grandmaster", as Andrea Botez once put it so nicely, but a loaded gun can be deadly also in the hands of an amateur, or even more so.)
As the respective lines are a bit scattered in The Modern Tiger, I will try to compile the most important variations in a little series of posts.
I am intending to classify the material into three groups:
1. White plays g4 before or without h4
This is comparatively rare but not less dangerous and it is important to react precisely.
2. White plays h4 before or without g4
This is the main complex of lines.
3. White plays h4 outside the typical Flexible Dragon Restrained set-up
These are rarer lines where there is less to fear but still it's important to know how to cope with is somewhat speculative early h-pawn push.