Advice for a beginner

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Thomas_McCarty
  1. e4 e5
  2. Nc3 Nc6
  3. Bc4 Nf6
  4. d3 Bc5
  5. f4 ?! d6
  6. Nf3 O-O
  7. Na4 (attacking the bishop so I can castle) Bg4
  8. Nxc5 dxc5
  9. O-O Re8

    Hey guys, I have a question in this position, which I seem to reach quite often. (This was a 5-minute blitz game). I am having difficulty making a plan to carry myself forward into an advantageous position. I ended up playing 10. c3 to stop his knight from coming to d4 where he could pressure the pin on my queen before I forced his bishop away. However, I am struggling to come up with plans that extend beyond the scope of 1 to 2 moves in this position, which I have often. My general ideas are to advance my pawn on f4 and use the open F file that my rook is sitting on to attack his king. Is this correct? Is there a better way to play? After 8. Nxc5 dxc5 he has a weakened center. Should I play less aggressive and a more positional game? While I did win this game, I lose in this position around 50% of the time, and my play was far from perfect.

Thanks for any advice happy.png

Shakti13

5.f4 is a very unnecessary (not bad) move. A simpler move is Nf3, just developing the knight. However it depends on what kind of play style you like and you haven't really shown the rest of the game. 

meowkshake

A few GM games on this:

I want to add that the position after 9.O-O is very complicated. White has a few plans at his disposal, all of them sharp and double-edged. Your plan of fxe5 and an attack along the f-file is not one of them, though. Don't give Black a knight outpost on e5 for free!

BTW, GM Mihail Marin gave this position a detailed explanation, albeit from the Black side, in his repertoire book Beating the Open Games.

Thomas_McCarty

Thanks for the detailed response @Meowkshake. I'll consider purchasing that book. Perhaps it would be better for me to explore playing 5. Nf3 as @Shakti13 suggested until I explore the position a lot further. Thanks to both of you.