interesting opening: Stonewall

This is a game I just played. It was a nice game and good to look at if you are interested in playing the stonewall with white. I will try to explain some of the idea's behind the moves. 

Stonewall and Interesting DO NOT go together in any combination...

so, do you care to explain your argument? because I don't get this comment.

Why are you trading everything of? You have a piece more, and his king is in the open. Use your rook and queen, and you'll have him mate soon! As I see it, you can take his queen in the next couple of moves. Sure you are winning, but you can force your win much easier.

easy answer! I had little time left! At that point I can't analyze too much, I rather go for the much faster easy moves. Also, I couldn't mate alone with rook and Queen because his Queen was close by his king. My minor pieces weren't developped yet. That's pretty much why I trade off when I'm a full rook ahead!

stonewall is such an annoyingly boring opening to have to break open....it's seriously the REASON I play e5 in response to d4

18. Qxh5 works faster to checkmate, even if short on time, much faster. 

20. Rg3 works well, as the black queen must move away, and white can play Qh8+ getting behind black's king and driving him forward.

 cool opening

Hey Hey

sebas4life> "black's mission is pretty much to try and trade off the bishop."

Getting in ...e5 is also good enough to equalize. Therefore, an interesting defense is 3...Nc6!? (threatening both ...e5 and ...Nb4), and now:

yes your right! But it all falls apart if white plays c3 before playing f4

sebas4life> yes your right! But it all falls apart if white plays c3 before playing f4

If White plays 4.c3, Black replies 4...e5 and Black is already much better.

okay, I'm gonna have to look into that, thanks for these constructive comments. Maybe change my openings repertoire if it's that easy to undermine.

ouch, that game had to hurt. would it have help at all if the king would have taken the bishop?

 Sebas, Mike has pretty much answered how I would respond. It is just a boring openingto play, hence my original comment. I did not say it wasa bad opening, it is just an opinion that its boring, so where can I produce an argument?

One thing we can debate is your repetoire. You are a low rated player like myself (although in my defence I play elsewhere on a frequent basis and just visit the forums here). What my grade is isnt important anyway. What is, is your repetoire. I played you in a few English openings, we also played a Grob attack where you lost immediately because I know how to play against it. You seem to want to choose openings which are more 'obscure'.

I think you should be playing e4 openings, but whatever you decide you need to try to stick to one system where you can. just my humble opinion for what its worth :)

ncpharaoh> "would it have help at all if the king would have taken the bishop?"

Nope. 12...Kxh7 13.Rh3+ Kg8 14.Qh5 and there's no way Black can stop mate on both h7 and h8 so he's done for on the next move. The Stonewall is really tough to defend against the first time you face it---by the time you see the attack, it's already too late. That's also why it has such a good reputation against computers.

But a little preparation can go a long way in defending against it.

i used to play this it is fun good kingside attacks and it is not boreing. i think it was tarrach that said 2.e3 was only peaceful by the way it looked

Well, what I should play, is what I want to play. I thought your first comment was quite offensive. You were actually saying that what I said, ( that the stonewall is an interesting opening) was not true. Now you explained why you said that, so now I can respect it much more.

Anyway, online chess for me is nothing about ratings, (maybe unlike you) but more about experiencing all kinds of different strategie's, from french, to caro kann, to ruy lopez, to the grob, and the stonewall. This way I learn much more about the game then just playing e4 all the time. Also I find it quite boring to play the same opening all the time. I try to play solid games at my chessclub, where I have won a lot of games, thanks to my understanding of many different openings that i've learned at this website with failures and successes. 

If you like The Stonewall you're sure to like The Torre or Colle-Zukertort even better where White can achieve similar structures, but with the bonus of not having to play at Bishop odds for most of the game.

Here's a recent Torre game I played OTB:

But unlike the Stonewall which is only really Serviceable against d5 Black set-ups, the Torre can be recommended against a variety of Black openings also.

 After 1 d4 d5  2 e3 Nf6  3 Bd3 Nc6  4 f4 Nb4, Soltis recommends 5 Nf3 (instead of 5 Be2).  After 5...Nxd3  6 cxd3 (instead of the "obvious" recapture 6 Qxd3).  Black often gets counterplay against the Stonewall Attack by occupying e4 with a knight.  With a pawn on d3, Black loses this option.