Developing an attacking plan?

Hello guys. This is just my second post after enjoying chess.com for quite a while (on and off). 

I've been buying and reading books alot of books the last 6 months. Acutually I read more than I play and enjoy getting into the theory. 

I benefits a bit from Silmans HTRYC in understanding what to do when I cannot find any tactical play - but I think I suffer from not understanding how to grasp plans taking advantage of my "positive imballances", e.g. this game where I felt I had a lead from the beginning but didnt know what to do with it and almost drawed the game was it not because of a blunder from black:

I'd try to annotate some of my thoughts. Perhaps you guys can help me finding the "next step" in my development. Thanks in advance.

6.a3 is not a move you want to play. ...Bb4 is comming sure but why not find ways to develop that deal with ...Bb4? That way you continue to improve your position while 6.a3 is unfortunately almost like passing a turn. So here you would like to find a pattern of development that allows you to deal with threats on your center pawns while increasing your advantage in development, space and time. This may require a little calculation since Black will be developing with the purpose of attacking your pawns. Although there isn't much in the way of tactics we must calculate to keep the advantage even on move six! 

So lets just look at the obvious 6.Nf3 Bb4 7.Bd3, developing and defending e4. The move Bd3 protects e4 but weakens d4. So 7...Nc6 puts pressure there right? Nope. After 8.O-O White is fine since 8...Nxd4 Nxd4 9.Qxd4 Bb5+ wins the queen. I believe these are the tactics you were looking for. Lets say that Black sees this and plays 8...O-O. He then loses to the greek gift sac after 9.e5 Nd5 10.Bxh7+ Kxh7 11.Ng5+ Kg6 12.h4 (muy importante) 12...Rh8 13.h5+! Rxh5 14.Qd3+ f5 15.exf6+ Kxf6 16.Qf3+. So White definitely has an advantage here. 

Lets try 7...c5 because it doesn't lose anything. 8.O-O! Nc6 9.d5 Bxc3 10.bc (Now Black has to move the bishop) 10...Ba5 (10...Bb4 11.a3) 11.cxb7 Bxb7 12.Qa4+ Kf8 and White's strong development leads to Black giving up castling rights. Long-story-short, White's positive imbalances are pretty positive and Black's threats to the center pawns don't really work out. Chess gets interesting when you start finding this stuff and you start to see how White has better possibilities when playing actively and avoiding moves like 6.a3 when possible. It's also fun when you can play O-O! Back to the game...

Maybe you can play 8.Bd3 O-O 9.h4 here? Idunno. 

9.d5 looks really good. 8...Bd7 loosened Black's control of d5 (kinda like how Bd3 in analysis "weakened d4) and White can take advantage of this and ruin Black's coordination even more e.g; a.) 9...Nb8/9...Na5 10.dxe6 b.) 9...exd5 10.exd5 Na5 11.Bd3! threatening b4 when Black will have to spend some time unwraveling the position. c.) 9...exd5 10.exd5 Nb8 11.Bd3! (again asking Black what the bishop on d7 is doing and making the knight on b8 a little uncomfortable) and after a mistake like 11...c6? 12.d6 Bf8 13.Qe2+ White wins material.

10.d5 is probably still good.

11.Be3 is definitely better. The knight on h5 is practically floating. Generally when you have an advantage in space you don't want to trade. In the 9.d5 position you could see how this was causing Black's pieces to get in the way of each other. 

13.Bd3 - you don't want to trade here. After the trades we can see that Black only has to manage two pieces now and they're both bishops too. 

Maybe 15.f4 Bxe5 16.dxe5 Qxd1 17.Rfxd1 Rfd8 18.Ne2 is ok. 

33.f4 Be7 34.Nxe7+ Qxe7 35. Rc4 looks good but you have to watch the backrank. I think White should be better but queen endings are tough.

White's advantage was better development and more space. Black was having trouble finding good squares for the pieces and soon the discoordination could lead to tactical problems (like 9.d5). But after trades like 11...Nxg3 and 13.Bxc6 a lot of the problems were gone e.g; one bishop getting to c6 and the other to f6. So while it is good to develop you have to be on the lookout for the problems in Black's position. Developing is good but given enough time Black's bad position might have become good with some work and so your development has to be put to use sooner or later. By seeing the "imbalances" in Black's position and the weakening of certain squares then you would find tactical chances. By developing and only developing you can miss them. 

One more note... aften doing my own annotations and getting the great analysis from Titan, I ran the game through HIARC which made clear, that I "missed" the obvious 29.Nd4 forking the black queen and rook with a winning outcome.

Actually I thought above that move in-game but miscalculated the eventual outcome. My logic went something like after 29.Nd4 then outcome will just be 29..Rxf3 30.Nxe6 fxe6 which loses material - overlooking the black rook in attack and an actual material win for white.

So yes... my calculating skill sometimes need intensive care :)

Btw - HIARC also deems 35.Rxg5 a blunder because of the possibility of 35.exf7+ Rxf7 36.Qd5 which leads to a clear win.

Fiveofswords: Thanks for the comments and the great advice. I love endgames so hopefully I will be able to capitalize on such a simplification in the future. Atm my endgames knowledge lacks the skill to see the endgame win after your mentioned line:

Thanks again.

Thank you for explaining. I will try to play through this endgame until I grasp every nuance :)

I didn't read a lot of the book but the idea of comparing your position to your opponent's is pretty important so I ended up finding other ways to try and do that. Most of those tactical ideas I learned from playing open games. They're pretty common in those positions so I was able to learn how they work by playing them a lot. I haven't really done a lot of tactics trainers but that brings it's own problems but looking at annotated games by players like Lasker, Chigorin and Morphy was helpful.

6.a3 is not a good move. If blacks play Bb4 you have many solutions to protect e4 and developping at the same time.

11. Bg3. Be3 is better because blacks have always the knight in h5 (bad position), Bg3 forcing blacks to capture the bishop and change a bad knight for a good white bishop.

20. Rad1. Maybe Rfd1 is better? Because after you can planning Rab1 or c1 for attack.

23. b4. Blacks is happy to echange c5. 

Sorry for the bad words english, I am French.

Fiveofswords: I tried playing this line a few times and couldn't figure out how to win the endgame in pratice. I then made HIARC play an engine match against itself from the situation in post #7 and white only made a draw from "perfect play". Are you sure, that just trading pieces off is the correct play here? Or perhaps most people are not capable of defending precisely enough to draw such an endgame making it correct to trade pieces anyway?

Thanks.

Thx for explaining!

Haven't read the other peoples' comments but here are mine:

6. a3 - is unnecessary because when Bb4  happens there are multiple ways to block like Be3, Bd2 or even Qc2. I would develop with Nc3 here

10. Bf4 - play h3 instead. always keep in mind on whether your opponent can kick your piece out in the opening, and where it will go after. Bf4 followed by Nh5 is a common theme with white losing their dark squared bishop. not ideal :\

14...Bf6 - Qe8 might be better because you can recapture instead of doubling isolated pawns. Although play might be cramped for white, they can play b5 next move.

23. Rd3 - Nd4 is a fork! look into your tactics ahaha. I'll only point out this tactical error because it's so obvious. I'll ignore other tactical errors for the sake of saving time :P

Overall, even though I'm no grandmaster, I feel like your opponent was rather cooperative. i.e. crumbling when you started to pressure the position. There are other minor things which I will not point out. :)

May I ask what the time controls were?

I just want to give my take/advice on the position.

A lot of people on this forum have talked about some moves and given there take on the moves etc.

I want to share the way I would handle this position.

I have read all of the above comments as of yet and no one has touched on this plan or idea of playing the position.

So I figure I would share my take on the position and give another prespective.

*Warning* Please do not feel as if I am trying to say the way you played was bad or that your move was bad. I want to be very clear. The continuation I am going to show might be just another way of playing the position.

In math 2+2= 4. 

However, 1+3= 4 as well as long as you get to the ending result of 4

Your method/approach can be different. In chess sometimes the same thing can apply.

A win is a win no matter what approach was tryed.

In the game you played 5.e4

No one has said anything about this move in the forum as of yet. Again no one has said anything about it probably because they all like this move and think its good. It very well might be the best move.

5.e4 as you said in your game notes gains center dominance.

However, with center dominance comes a cost!

The cost which comes with 5.e4 is that the d4 pawn will no longer be able to be protected by another pawn.

Which means you will have to show the d4 pawn some tender loving care for the rest of the game. The d4 pawn will have to be baby sit/looked after so to speak.

If you remember in the game at move 17. What happen? You forgot about your d4 pawn with 17.Qf3? If your opponent would of took your pawn you would of went from center dominance to center destruction!

The reason I bring this up is because I want to offer another move/continuation on the below line.

The move I would like to suggest is the move 5.Bf4. I like this move. In the game you did play this move.

The follow up plan I would of done would be. To instead of playing the pawn to e4. I would play it to e3.

In the game your opponent I believed played e6. So I will give black that token move just so you can see the position visiually.

Now what are the draw backs? What are the advantages of this?

Well by playing 5.Bf4 you move your bishop outside of the pawn chain and attack c7. Than you play e3 given your d4 pawn 100% support.

5.e4 Gains center dominance which is a plus.

However, It requires you to look after your d4 pawn which is a negative.

By playing 5.Bf4 with 6.e3 you lose some center dominance which is a negative.

However, You gain peace of mind. You don't have to worry about d4 any more and your game plans becomes very simple which is a plus.

In the above position can you see your game plan?

I will give you some highlights to help you out. If you can't see the plan.

Hopefully the highlights can help you. The above diagram is the Long term plan that I see at move 5 after Bf4 is played. I do not have a specific order in which I will do all of these moves. I will do them only after seeing what black does. Than I would adjust accordingly.

Rooks belong on open Files.

As you can see in the above picture you can have your rooks on the B file and Semi-Open C file attacking on the queen side with the help of your dark bishop.

The reason I believe you want your A rook on the B file will be eventually your opponent may play the pawn move c6 to try and blunt the pressure on there pawn on c7. So they will play c6 to try and relieve some of the pressure which will than give you a hook to attack with your B pawn. Which by playing your A rook to the B file you will than be in a position to do a B pawn push trying to get it to b5 so you can shred the pawns and open more files. If your opponent is a good player they might play the move a6 preventing you from doing this which will than require the A pawn getting to a6. Again very standard minority attack which causes weakness you can attack with your rooks.

It is called a minority attack because you are using your 2 queen side pawns vs blacks 3 queen side pawns.

Yeah I think I would of played the position like that.

Again 5.e4 is not bad by no means. However, Its always good to have other options and other idea's. You never know maybe one day you will give the idea a shot.

 With all respect: I think that you have made yours comments way too fast because of the factual errors in your analysis (suggesting moves already played, referring to wrong move-numbers, pointing out themes already addressed in the former replies and so). I'm sure you are capable of teaching chess at a very high level if you wish  Thank you anyway for taking you the time to reply. The time controls were 30/0. 

X-player: What a well written (and well illustrated) post. I appreciate it touching on quite a few of the themes that I am trying to grasp more precisely atm and I will not wait one bit to give your ideas a shot! Lets talk about some of the concepts you bring up: pawn chain, isolated/unprotected d-pawn, game plans.

Pawn chains: By experience and by reading enough theory I'm realizing how important a great pawn chain can be (and how hard it can sometimes be to retain). After reading your post partly I was however beginning to think whether your suggestions was born out of my terrible move 17.Qf3 and sure - there it was (and me being ashamed once again ). But I would rather not alter my general strategic concepts based on a error later in a game. You do however have a great point in, that my d-pawn gonna need a lot of babysitting for the rest of its life. Thats bring up the consideration whether fast development/central dominance should be rated higher than long term safety/great pawn chains?

Isolated/unprotected d-pawn: How bad is it to have such a d-pawn? Without any real experience at a high enough level, I'm not sure I'm capable of grasping this fully yet. I have a copy of Mauricio Flores Rios "Chess Structures - a grandmaster guide" (which I haven't seen discussed very much yet), which I obviously are not able to fully understand and have therefore only skimmed briefly. He do however talks about the "isolani" (isolated queens pawn) which arises from quite a few openings and that it is a battle between white/black to (dis)prove the weakness of the d-pawn and that white has better middlegame prospect, while black has better prospects in the endgame. How much importance one should assign to these advanced concepts at my level i'm not sure? I guess when the weak pawn is being on a (for black) semiopen file, one should deal these concepts quite a lot of importance?

Game plans: Unfortunately i'm not capable of seeing the game plan that you are mentioning (that black probably will play an eventual c6 and I therefore should place rooks on my b and c-files. I don't thinks his c-pawn looks that vulnerable?). Perhaps you or another are able to explain how early (and why) you in a game of chess can get a meamingful idea of how you possible can win the game (which side to attack, which file to open, which sacrifice to breakthrough etc). Of course i'm aware that one cannot predict your opponents moves - but conceptually speaking, its seems that good players grasp this long before I do.

Again thank you x player from adding light to these areas. It reminds me of how great a place chess.com are - and that I should have asked for help/analysis from you guys a lot earlier since I have learned zero positional understanding from my computer analysis

 Thanks for the comments. In Mauricios book I saw he actually advocate of the power of a "isolani" which have advanced to the fifth rank but I have not studied the concept (yet). I wonder whether such a book uncover something truly eye-opening for a guy at your level of play?

Can White play 6.e3 c5 7.dxc5 here? It looks kinda annoying to me as White has a lot of easy attacking moves and Black is kinda just out there.

Another great post Fiveofswords. Thanks you for explaining a bit of the concept of a mobile pawn center which I also have on my "future study list". And now I can add the brand new subject of "chess traumas" to the list as well

You're perhaps correct that I might seek a bit too much for the holy chess grail in the form of a "grand plan" in each game in my continuing quest of solving chess conceptually (not being able to create at "tactical masterplan" for the whole game ).  This, i think, is actually a great point of view to be studied for each and every chess player. "Am I too obsessed by a certain part of the game which can be limiting for the development of other and more importants parts (in relation to you getting better)"??  And yes Silman might give the impression that too much of a game are decided by these positional ideas. I do think however, that he also advocates for the idea that if you understand the positional part of chess, then all sorts of lesser gameplans/tactics arrives which gives you more of the amorphous flexibility that I think you are speaking of. This way of education works greatly for me because pure calculating/tactics seems so obvious important in the first place. But the question is of course how much weight one should apply to each chess subject? And this might even be quite different according to each person for getting optimal chess results! 

I might have a weird chess trauma that should be addressed sooner than later, but my own conceptional idea goes something like this: 
In accordance to planning how to win a chess game, I must give the following parts of planning enough thoughts (not necessarily equally):

1. Short term plan/tactics ala the ones you can train i tactics trainers: which few (1-4) moves can I apply which wins material or exchange material that gives me a better position for winning the game.
2. Middle term plan/attacking concepts that im not great at yet: when no apparent short term tactics are in sight, what are the winning game plans (5-10 moves ahead)? Where on the board should I attack? Which file to open (and how)? Which piece should I coordinate an attack against? Etc.
3. Long term plan/positional placing of the pieces ala Silmans ideas: how can I place the pieces so that I have a strong foundation for creating game plans of type 1/2?

I dont know if this form of logic is completely off - but this is where I am now in my development. Im also unsure how much there is to gather in my "type 2 plans" in relation to the other two types/concepts?

Thanks for coping with all my nonsense

This is interesting. We might speak of the same thing but are using a different description of the concept (probably because of my lack of experience etc). When I am speaking of a "game plan" (or my "type 2" plan) I'm thinking of your exact kind of logic: "what collection of moves can I (advantageously) play?", "how do I maximize mobility?", "how am I efficient?". In my world this is a sort of game plan. Only am I often unsure how to answer the questions.

Perhaps your great experience and readily answers to your own of these questions makes your game flow in a way, that it doesn't feel like a plan or set of plans? 
Your point of playing the least conditional move which are useful in different kind of "plans" (call it what you want) I actually find very subtle and inspiring and must indeed make your play very flexible!

Something like 8.Kxd1 Bxc5 9.Nb5 Na6 10.Rc1 with Nxa7 in the position looks annoying. If it is too much I think White is going to be a tempo up on some queens gambit positions by playing normal moves. But yeah don't want to go too off topic... 

As far as plans go though I usually find that while sometimes you really can have a plan and just play a bunch of moves that fit, a lot of the time something else happens that changes the position so I end up having to do other things.