A deeper understanding of the Dutch Stonewall?

That makes more sense to me than anything else.  

It's late for me, but I will watch the video again and throw you guys some of Roman's "refutations" your way and see what you think. If anything, it gives White some pretty cool lines to consider. He had me convinced.

really? but I love his method of fighting the Caro-Kann. I would say not all the time. Perhaps you're refer to his somewhat "incomplete" or "holes" in the Sicilian Grand Prix Attack for white

Generally I would take any pronouncements that a major opening like the Dragon or the Dutch has been refuted with a few grains of salt. It may be that the current state of theory favors the White, but new analyses will appear, as they did in the past. 

 Nothing wrong with your example although I think it's the type of position the OP was trying to avoid as it is very locked up and not to his liking. It's an absolutely fine position for Black but you have to be comfortable in a closed up, positional game to like what's going on there and that's just not what he wants for the time being (it could open up with some exchanges but the big question is, does he know how to open the position up so that it favors his side); in the long run, he will have to learn to play more positionally and it would help him to learn this but as the saying goes, you can only lead a horse the water ...

In playing white against a Dutch stonewall, does it make sense to Queen-side castle, particularly if black has done a King-side castle? (1) avoids king-side pawn attack (2) white king-side pawns can be advanced against black king-side?

I'm trying this in a game now, but this is not a good test because it's an accidental Dutch: black intended Sicilian, and didn't notice I'd opened with D4. 

@ Eric_C: It's nice to learn that the OP's found an opening more to his liking. The Albin Countergambit is definitely sharper and more tactical than the Dutch.

hmm... some sources suggest black is equal, others say the stonewall is viable but white keeps his "normal advantage" (the conclusion I've usually seen).

No worries. I have been busy teaching. Over the weekend I will "refute" the Dutch using GM Roman D's killer moves. This way, everyone can just stop playing the Dutch and move on to openings that work. You will thank me when you see your ratings improve.

@Musikamole: You're using that R-word pretty liberally. The fact that some master-level players still employ the Dutch Defense as a "fighting" defense should speak volumes to the fact that it's not dead. Rather, I think there are many other openings that are much more "fishy" (although I wouldn't exactly consider those dead yet either), like the Double Muzio Gambit, Latvian Gambit, Austrian Defense, Grob Attack, etc. If you're out to "refute" an opening, I would look into those first.

That said, I greatly admire your efforts to refute the Dutch. It is in fact, very possible that there is a refutation out there that no one has discovered yet, but I am fairly certain that you can't outright refute the Dutch with the mainstream theory we have today. The system you mention doesn't really kill Black, but it does one very important thing: It takes a Dutch player out of his element, which is a fairly nice psychological effect if you're playing White. If you'd like, you can challenge me to a game where I play the Dutch as Black (rated or unrated; doesn't matter).

The Grob Attack shall never be refuted!!!  But that is a different story... I play the Stonewall Dutch when I am looking for something solid (although it could turn into a ferocious attack at any moment).  The problem is that below master level, nobody plays it the "right" way and, although Black gets equality, that equality usually turns into a pawn-locked, theoretically-drawn endgame.

If you are looking for an opening that will last you a lifetime, suprises opponents everytime, and somewhat tactical?  Look no further than the Budapest Gambit (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5!?)

Don't laugh yet.  There is a book out by Everyman Chess that covers the Budapest Gambit.  I don't have the book with me (yes, I usually carry it around with me) and I cannot remember the author.  But the book is completely awesome.

First it goes over how Former World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik played the Budapest Gambit and won, but when he played against it, he lost!  A good selling point.  The book warns that there is some memorization of lines, as just playing on principle won't be enough to survive.  I have played it multiple times in Internet blitz, and have never had someone gain an advantage against me.  Nobody gets more than 10 moves deep into the theory, and then they are on their own.  Then the fun begins.

Buy the book, Learn the Budapest.

You won't be disappointed.

The R-word. I like that. I placed quoation marks around the word "refute" to emphasize that it is a questionable opinion held by some. No opening, from the most respected to the weakest can be refuted in under-master level play. 

Anyway, I have not shown the "refutation" of the Dutch yet. It's coming this weekend and I look forward to the feedback.

 :D

I think the Damiano Defense can pretty much be considered refuted. :)

You know your openings!  

I am most impressed, as this very old line is not well known. GM Boris Alterman covers the Damiano Defense over at ICC. It's pretty interesting to see how much mileage he can get out of a defense that should not work at all. I'll have to share some of his insights into this very old defense.

Paying the few bucks a month just to listen to GM Boris Alterman, not to mention the other stuff...I feel like it is a steal.  He also wrote a book on gambits that covers some of the 55 gambits! ...that he covers in video format over at ICC.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=boris+alterman&x=0&y=0

I agree, which is why I believe that the main lines with Nf3 and g3 are either too docile or not applicable.

When facing the Dutch (an opening I have little regard for based on my experiences OTB), I usually play 2.Bg5. Black now has two options:

Option A: 2...Nf6?! 3.Bxf6 exf6 4.e3, and White will play c2-c4 and Nb1-c3 with a sizeable advantage.

Option B: 2...h6 3.Bh4 g5 4.e3 Nf6 (not 4...gxh4?? 5.Qh5 checkmate) 5.Bg3 Bg7 6.Nd2 with an advantage for White. Black Kingside is extended, and an h-pawn advance will destroy the position.

There is a reason certain defenses like the Damiano, Dutch, St. George's, Philidor's, and others are not seen at all or seen only very rarely at GM levels. It's because they ultimately don't work against strong players.

@Insane Chess

My preference has always been option C, Kindermann's recommendation of 2...g6.

It's very passive, and it still overextends your Kingside. The aim of the Dutch is to control the e4-square. By niether moving the Knight nor chasing the Bishop away, your King's Knight will not be able to participate in that fight. Thus, all you will be doing is weakening your Kingside while your King is still on it.

There are more theoretical problems as well. The Kingside pieces will be developed without Kingside castling early on, for example. That means you have to castle Queenside, and thus move twice the amount of pieces before your King is safe.

No, I think the reason why the dutch isn't seen much is because it's so demanding. Black risks being at a positional disadvantage, people trying constantly to tactically exploit the weakened kingside, being at a spacial disadvantage in many lines, etc, but black still ultimately has his chances, and that's the price black players pay for having a most likely sound (just risky and hard to play, and yes I do think white is better) way to play for an imbalanced position to try to win from. At high level play where white can often get the edge anyway, while black has to not only deal with that but with keeping his king not mated for the first 20 moves just to get to that inferior position, it's just not reliable. In that way it reminds me of alekhine's. It can be played for an interesting imbalanced game but is probably not a great choice as the main opening in one's repertoire, which gives people time to prepare for it. But I have seen it played at GM level, just not as a main weapon.

I don't think you can generalize why certain openings aren't played, many openings will not be played for many individual reasons. Maybe the opening is downright bad (damiano's, some gambits) but others like the dutch may merely be  very risky, while the philidor commits to a passive game (though it still gets played sometimes at GM level as well), it all depends.

 Though I know nothing about the dutch I guess the good point of 2...g6 is that white's bishop needs to prove it's good on g5 (exchanging it would give black the two bishops, at least something to work with), else black is just developing in normal leningrad fashion. Are there dynamic ways to exploit it? No idea, probably. But you can't really critisize this move just with general ideas, as it's a very concrete situation: will white be able to take advantage of black's delayed development and how? If not, it would just transpose into a most likely good leningrad for black.

Um, I don't know the Leningrad well but in the Stonewall the Black's "weakened kingside" is rarely a problem. I don't think that I have ever gotten mated in 20 moves even the first times I played it, and rarely had to even worry about that. In fact it is far from clear that f5 is a "weakening" move as it gives the Black kingside space, controls e4 and also protects h7 from "Greek gifts" and similar attacks on the diagonal. The weaknesses on the Queenside are a little more of a problem, the Black has some trouble developing there and the b or a pawn can end up being backward, but the White needs to have  a fair amount of positional skills to exploit these.

I find the Stonewall especially efficient in blitz / bullet games as, once you have learned the ideas, it doesn't take too much thought to make reasonable moves. In principle I prefer the King's Indian, that is my favorite against d4, but it's more complex, there are often surprises and can't really be played in an automatic way.

@Atos, sorry, what I said only applied to, ironically, all non stonewall dutch's

Yeah the stonewall is a whole different beast. It's undeniably the sound, solid choice for black. The only problem with it is the long term dark square weakness as well as the bad bishop while white makes none of these concessions, so I get the feeling white is better. But in any case white can still try some scary sidelines against the dutch (like 2 Bg5, 2 Nc3), if black plays 1...f5, and this would be before he gets to the stonewall.