Black A6 "Turtles Defense"

Yes i admit Turtles Defense is not Rock Solid ... but maybe because I'm a novice/intermediate player. Players rated above 1500 please reply back with your version of the turtles defense. Also how you would attack the turtles defense if you were white.

turtle's defense or st george's defense? just asking though

Your given line is very strange:

1.d4 a6 2. e3?! Nc6?! 3.Nc3?! b5 4.Nf3 Bb7 5.Bd3 Qb8!?

I actually kind of like this strange move, intending to move to a7 or control the h2-b8 diagonal. However the rest of this line is just wacky.

6.Bd2?! Na7? (leave that square for the queen, play ...e6 and DEVELOP) 7. 0-0 e6 8.e4 c5! 9.dxc5? (d5 with a plus for white) Bxc5 10. Qe1? Ne7 11. Be3 Qc7 12.Bxc5 Qxc5 13. Rd1 0-0-0? (0-0 leaves black with a small sicilian style plus) 14.e5? (14.a4! with an attack for white) 14...Nac6?? (Bxf3! gxf3 Nac6 when black is better) 15.Be4? (Ne4! Qb6 Nd6+ Kb8 Nxf7 +/-) 15...d5 16.Bd3?! (exd6!) Rd7?! (why double on the d-file when it is blocked by a pawn? 16...h6!? 16...Ng6!? and 16...Kb8 are all better moves) 17. Qe2 (this move isn't so bad, but white doesn't have a plan. Best is 17. Ne2, intending c3, Ned4, and a4!) 17...g6 18.Rfe1 Rhd8?! 19.Qe3 Qxe3 20.Rxe3?? Ng8?!

Now we have an interesting ending. With black's last move he tries to accomplish 21...f6, but this loses a pawn due to pressure on e6. Instead, black should have simply won a piece with 20...d4! The rest of the game is one mistake after another and analysis is pointless.

e4 line yes St. George's Defense however Turtles Defense involves any front line move from white including e4

Really, all you have to do when you have a space advantage is make ONE HUNDRED percent sure, or as close as you can get, that black can't challenge it in a favorable way. The big problem with not only allowing a space advantage but not challenging it early on is that while both sides develop, guess who will be more free? The guy with more space, for a very simple reason: he has more options for his pieces! The guy with a lot of space can often develop all of his pieces quite easily, and this includes the heavy pieces, which often have easy access to the central files. If black were then to challenge the center, he'd be allowing it to open, and that favors the better developed guy, which will be white.

When you have space, in this case more space in the middle, you don't want to force immediate action unless otherwise your space will be challenged (like in most openings; but here we will assume the guy is a turtle and will wait for you to leave an opening: something you need not do) with ...c5 or something; what you really want to do is develop and see how your opponent likes having crappy pieces! If you are really well developed, then you probably can gain space on the wings, as even if the pawn center is challenged you may well be able to transform it into a piece center, because your pieces are so active.

The Turtle Defense is just too slow.  Here is how I crack its shell.

Nice tactics there with Nf5 and Nxe5!

And I thought you played well in blitz... I'm not kidding, you're at least a master. A beautiful game all the way through (well, actually I didn't blunder check with a cpu or anything, so maybe there was some black opportunity, but it really doesn't seem like it; your manner of strengthening the position really didn't seem to give the opponent any usable openings.).

It indeed illustrates black's passivity; there's no question about that, the only question is how white can slowly strangle black, BUT at the same time making sure no move he makes loosens his position enough to allow some sudden counterblow by black. With good discipline and technique however, one should be very happy to be white, and against such refined players (like you), giving up this kind of space as you do in the philidor at such an early stage is rather foolish really, despite the opening's solid reputation. It gives black way more work than he should ever need to do, and black shouldn't get into those kinds of positions without a fight.

You seem to be a lot like me (except better, based on games I've seen you play) stylistically: I can and love to develop a nice strategic grip but my tactics, though not awful, are not as good as they should be, and when the game opens up I can't always find the logical execution of my plan. I may start out with a moderate edge but have it dwindle as I miss some tactical opportunities. This is quite a problem, because almost any position, even if it started out closed, has to have some open lines at some point, so that the pieces can actually achieve something! Closed positions are merely a delaying of tactics.

Obviously worse is that I make too many oversights that put myself in trouble. Anyway, I've been improving my tactical rating; only at a modest 2200 but this was a big step from where it was a few months ago. I used to hate TT, and there are still a lot of stupid puzzles not exactly for 2200s, but even though there are a lot of simple positions in there, the fact that I miss them in time pressure shows I need to know the patterns so well that I can see and interpret a pattern very, very quickly which makes chess thinking in general exponentially more efficient, as then you can be like "ok if I get here, I'll be threatening this classic sac for mate in 5" in maybe a few seconds of looking at the position! I think 2795 should be damn solid! I've already improved just by doing a few hundred puzzles to get to my 2200! But no matter how good you are with them, you can always get better; perhaps you criticize your tactics merely because it's the weakest part of the game, even if they may still be very strong. Maybe you just don't look at tactics enough in your games? A big improvement in my game came from not only getting better at tactics, but looking for as many tactical patterns as possible for every move to make sure I'm not missing opportunities, and also basing positional evaluations not only on static factors but looking at possible dynamic ideas for each side, then calculate some sample moves to get a feel for the power of them and decide whose game is more dangerous. 

To be honest the game to me looks somewhat better than 2200 quality; maybe I'm wrong. This may be your best game but still, it makes my best strategic games look rather crude! Also the fact that there weren't a ton of tactics probably helped, but whatever the reason, the game looks really high quality. Black didn't play too bad either by the way; he seems to have mostly just moved his pieces around and defend, but then that's what you need to do in a philidor! I'd give him credit just for not collapsing much much quicker or lashing out! This guy forced you to push home your advantage, and you did.

I literally dream to play games like that, especially when the opponent truly challenges you with his defense, not just immediately collapsing or trying to make tactics that don't favor him.

"Chess is hard enough, especially for Black.  Why make it so much harder just to be different?"

Absolutely, +1

I think I'm pretty good at calculating, just that, likely because of my absence of more tactical patterns I don't always know what to calculate; a lot of times in my games I'll calculate maybe 5-6 moves looking at a rather narrow amount of side variations (who wants to sift through 5 alternatives per ply? ) very accurately, but then my whole line gets refuted by some reply on move 2 I never even considered!

Drunk n playing chess dont add up like drinking and driveing

Top shelf

oh please don't refer to the whole game i posted I just wanted to show you example of first line A6. Everything afterwards is a totally different subject.

your example is off subject ... unless you're playing A6 it doesn't belong here

Yeah, I made a little transfer: my blog

But I slightly disagree; I don't think it's off subject. It still demonstrates that, despite the fact that a space deprived position can't often be knocked out early on, that the one with central space should be comfortable with having a nice cushion to bring his pieces to, for the most part, superior locations, and this really adds up in 10-20 moves. Making use of it is really a matter of disciplined technique (not that it's a winning advantage). 1...a6 as has been said is too slow, as the whole idea of "undermining the center" in this fashion is: if you give your opponent like 6 free moves, not only can he make a center, he can develop his pieces around it and defend it rather easily.

I have sent challenge to you Elubas ... please honor me by accepting and demonstrate your "center domination"

No thanks