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In the Torre Attack what do you do if...

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Tuvokfan


After ...h5 what do you do? How do you continue your opening? Do you want that to happen?

AKJett

well, the next move is pretty obvious in the sense that it's not a rook move.

XCheck

Move your bishop to g3. If 5...h5?!, white can safely take on g5.

ThrillerFan

Also, even if g5 wasn't hanging, 5...h5 does absolutely nothing what-so-ever.  It doesn't even threaten to trap the Bishop as let's pretend White is a moron and does something completely stupid and non-productive, like 6.a3.  Then 6...h4 7.Be5 and you can't trap the Bishop as in the worst case scenario, he takes the Knight on f6.  There is no Qa5 trick as the Black pawn on d5 avoids the fork.  If Black moves the Knight, the Rook hangs.  There is no reason what-so-ever for Black to play 5...h5, unless his intention is to throw the game.

That said, the Torre is a bad idea in this case.  After 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 (or 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 d5), 3.Bg5 isn't a very good move.  Black gets full equality, and possibly even a slight advantage, with the move 3...Ne4!  I would recommend learning the Queen's Gambit when Black plays ...d5 in either of the first 2 moves, and reserve the Torre for when it's effective, namely after 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 or 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6.  In both cases, 3.Bg5 is fine.  It's a tad stronger against 2...g6 than 2...e6, but it's just flat out dubious against 2...d5.

If you like the Torre, there's nothing wrong with the move order 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3, and use 3.Bg5 against e6 or g6 and 3.c4 against d5.

Tuvokfan

Here is the Torre Attack as I learned it:

Tuvokfan
ThrillerFan wrote:

Also, even if g5 wasn't hanging, 5...h5 does absolutely nothing what-so-ever.  It doesn't even threaten to trap the Bishop as let's pretend White is a moron and does something completely stupid and non-productive, like 6.a3.  Then 6...h4 7.Be5 and you can't trap the Bishop as in the worst case scenario, he takes the Knight on f6.  There is no Qa5 trick as the Black pawn on d5 avoids the fork.  If Black moves the Knight, the Rook hangs.  There is no reason what-so-ever for Black to play 5...h5, unless his intention is to throw the game.

That said, the Torre is a bad idea in this case.  After 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 (or 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 d5), 3.Bg5 isn't a very good move.  Black gets full equality, and possibly even a slight advantage, with the move 3...Ne4!  I would recommend learning the Queen's Gambit when Black plays ...d5 in either of the first 2 moves, and reserve the Torre for when it's effective, namely after 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 or 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6.  In both cases, 3.Bg5 is fine.  It's a tad stronger against 2...g6 than 2...e6, but it's just flat out dubious against 2...d5.

If you like the Torre, there's nothing wrong with the move order 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3, and use 3.Bg5 against e6 or g6 and 3.c4 against d5.

I ment g5 sorry.

ThrillerFan

Well, first off, you must have learned it wrong, because Black has no business putting the Knight on c6 until after he has played c5.

Secondly, the position you have there should never happen even without the Knight on c6.

After 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 d5, 3.Bg5 is a bad move because of 3...Ne4!

After 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.Bg5, Black's best move is 3...h6, and White will typically trade on f6.

After 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.Bg5, if Black does play 3...d5, then 4.e3 and White should not "pre-meditate" 5.Bd3 and 6.c3.  There are cases where the pawn is better placed on c3, and others where it's better placed on c4.

I would HIGHLY recommend you get the book "The Torre Attack: Move by Move".  I have the e-Book version of it not because I'm a big Torre fan, but Everyman was having a buy 2 get 1 free sale, and there were 2 that I needed, so I picked up this one for free as I didn't have any recent theory on the Torre at the time.

The format of these books are great for either lower rated players, or players new to the opening in question, in this case the Torre.  They are not highly theoretical, include complete games, ask questions during the game, making you actually think and find the right move (don't spend 30 seconds on these questions, spend 5 to 10 minutes each).  You can master the Torre, and then all you really need are a line against an early d5 (I recommend the Queen's Gambit) and a line against the Dutch and Modern (both of which are fairly rare, though I faced a Dutch this past Sunday, which I won, and play the Modern as Black myself pretty frequently).

TitanCG

I think this is a transposition to the Trompowsky.