The Stonewall Attack in action at club level.

For anyone watching this thread who may want to take a further look at the Stonewall Attack there is a 4 part introduction to it on Youtube. It will get you started & show you how to play it & more importantly when not to play it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8owlkaNFlI

Parksstp, I was kinda hoping someone would do a post like yours. I've spent countless hours trying to make the Stonewall work against a black Kingside fianchetto with no luck. I have won a few games like that but it was more that my opponent was weaker then me than the opening I played being sound. As my rating got higher more & more of my opponents played a Kingside fianchetto defense & the more I struggled with it. It totally blunts the Bishop sacrifice on h7 as well as the Knight outpost on e5 & without those the Stonewall is pretty much useless.

I gave up playing it for a while then I tried transposing to some form of Queens Gambit when I saw g7 being played, that was far more sucessful.

There was no internet back then so it wasn't easy to find literature on something so specialized, since I returned to Chess it's a different matter. I found this on Youtube, when not to play the Stonewall & how to use it against a fianchetto defense. I wish I'd had it years ago it would have saved me a lot of pain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RndSBlFeIw (When not to play the Stonewall)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlUQ77VHbfI (Stonewall - How to attack a fianchetto defense)

I think the plan I see most against a fianchetto is g4 f5 and exchanging pawns on g6. White still has better control on the king side squares and the typical rook lift plans are effective enough with an open h file.

If White starts with 1.d4 (Which I think he must or else be forced to transpose to something completely different ) he can still have the option of playing a Colle-Zukertort against d6/g6 setups.

When the ...Nc6 comes really early I think you have to find a different plan as well.  Or allow protect against ..e5 with f4 even if it means you lose your bishop after Nb4.

The board didn't post the moves like I wanted but its white to move here after 1.d4 d5 2.e3 Nc6 3.Bd3 e5.

I play the rather idosyncratic

TitanCG wrote: this is a very good opening to play when your opponent plays KID. I use it a lot. Stonewall is a mistake when you play higher level players who fianchetto the black bishop

If White starts with 1.d4 (Which I think he must or else be forced to transpose to something completely different ) he can still have the option of playing a Colle-Zukertort against d6/g6 setups.

The way I see it is Black has a couple of options. He can refuse to let you play the Stonewall at all, or he can play a fianchetto defense & make it very difficult for you. But in many anti-Stonewall lines black achieves little but frustrating you & if you reset your thinking you may get good counterplay. In thwarting the Stonewall black may not be playing the optimum counter to a Queens pawn game.

Here is one where my opponent played the Dutch defense so my Stonewall went out the window on the 1^st move but because I had a good understanding of the Dutch from studying the Stonewall & other Dutch variations I managed a reasonable game anyway.

I personally love playing the korchnoi attack if my opponent plays the Dutch. d4. f5, g4, fxg4, h3. You can pick up some quick checkmates against unsuspecting opponents. Great compliment to add to the stonewall

I'll check that one out, I had to counter the Dutch OTB in that game, it was the 1st time anyone played it against me when I had adopted the Stonewall

After 1.f4 d6 2.e4 Black can play 2...d5 and 2...Nf6 3.Nc3 d5, 2...c5 , 2...g6 aiming for Pirc/modern and all kinds of stuff. You may not get the type of game you want after moves like that. 

parksstp

Nice game, you managed to maintain the basic Stonewall formation & principles against a very different defence. I'm wondering how it would have gone if on move 8 he played BxB. If he knew the Stonewall like we do he would have understood how important the light squared Bishop is. I would have swapped it off leaving the dark squared one which is always a problem unless you reach and end game or very open position.

I think the computer is correct, it seems to be a forced mate although most people (me anyway) would have been happy to mop up material &/or force the pawn home on a6

@parks_stp

I hate playing the Stonewall against computers. It had a bit of a reputation as a difficult opening for computers a few years back but now I find its very difficult to play a computer compared to OTB. The dammed thing does all the wrong moves & then uses its prodigious calculating power to make me look like an idiot for even attempting it.

Can you post an example or 2, it may be worth putting a few heads together & learning a bit more about it?

Nice game, its interesting how you transpose to a Stonewall, the e4 push solves the  DSB problem nicely which gives compensation for not getting the Knight outpost on e5. Also it gets the rooks connected which can be a problem in the line I play.

I played a couple of computer games last night, very frustrating, if I play an easy level of difficulty it attacks with its King in the centre & I play other lines & wipe it out & if I raise the difficulty level it seems to thwart the attack at every move with pure calculating power.