Need help on middlegame position

Hi all

I am busy going over some of my games, and I am mostly confused about the ideas behind pushing pawns on the castled king-side. 

I think in this first position the idea is a fairly simple tactic.  By playing h5 black is attacking white’s knight and the horse is unable to move without getting captured.  His own pawns are blocking his escape route, and being a minor piece down, something white can think about is to take advantage of black’s disrupted pawn structure to squeeze out a win.  Black on the other hand might be looking at a mating attack on the h2 square perhaps?

 In the second position, I find the idea not so simple to understand.  The computer analysis suggested that I play h4, a move which I would never think of playing.  From what I can see, neither black's knight or queen is able to capture the pawn due to the rook on h1 and the knight on f3.  But what long-term advantage does a move such as this one give me?  Black has not yet castled, and there is no guarantee that he will on the king-side (or even castle at all).

I see a lot of master games where moves such as the above one is played.  My problem is that I am quite fearful of opening up pawns in front of my king once I have castled.  I am under the impression that those pawns should stay as close to the king as possible, protecting him from any threats that my occur.  I missed the obvious tactic in my first game because of this.  I overlooked the move based on my fears of pushing too many (if any) pawns close to my castled king.  Obviously my thinking process is faulty, and I need to rectify it

Any advice (especially with examples) would prove most helpful.

Bump. I'm wondering about this sort of stuff too. When I am making center pawn breaks, I always seem to push the wrong pawn. I'll play d5 when the best move in the position is e5, and vice versa...

I didn't analyze deeply the lines obviously but for what is worth i think in the first diagram pushing the h pawn won't result in capturing the knight, white has tactical sequences which he can rescue the knight, for example he can first play something like e4 attacking your knight followed by rescuing his knight or even play Nc3-Nd5 and make the game tactically complicated for you.

in the second diagram pushing the h pawn is playable , the idea is that the computer wants to misplace the knight on g6 since black has lack of space and white has good control of the center and black can't easily challange that.

A simple way for you to know when you can push your kingside pawns where your king is located is when you see you have good control grip on your center and is not easy for your opponent to counter you there, then push those pawns after some calculation, you should also see if your opponent is in a position in any way to take advantage of the fact that your losening your king castle structure.

In your first diagram your control of the center is shaky, in the second it isn't and hence it is easier to decide to push the h pawn in the second but in the first you should calculate tactical sequences carefully before you do such permanent weaknesses.

Thank you Jason215, your detailed response really makes a lot of sense.  I must admit, I have only recently started to read up some material on space advantages, so my knowledge on the subject is still very limited.  If you have any advice on what I should be reading, please feel free to drop a couple of suggestions.  I think my biggest concern is that once I do have a space advantage, I am not always sure how to take full advantage of it.

Taking advantage of space advantages is easy and you can keep in your mind some simple guidlines for it, for example the following:

1)the side of the board where you have the space advantage that's usually an indication you should make your game plan there and attack on that side, the reason for this is simple because the side of the board where you have the space advantage it is easier for you to bring in reinforcments (pieces) than your opponent has time to bring in sufficent defenders, it's your strenght area of the board and you should follow the attack on that side of the board, in general terms.

2)another idea for you when you have space advantage like on the kingside a pawn on e5 for example is sometimes your opponent is just able to defend your attack there, but because of your overall space, at the right moment you should think about shifting your attack to the other side of the board and create second weaknesses there and if done properly it would collapse the opponent position.

        I would rather suggest you books to read but i have to admit it is not the most efficient way to improve, yes it should be part of your overall chess improvement program certainly but i would suggest you accompany that with the analysis of your own games.

      Hope this helps :)

i'd say that when you're not sure about the principle involved in pushing that pawn, don't bother pushing it at all.. even if the strongest computer said that you'd be in advantage after that move, how would you capitalize? you don't even know why you are in "that advantageous" position after all.. remember, we make advantages by seizing our opponent's mistake..

i think what WE need to do (we because we're not different in terms of playing strength) as of this moment is to try achieve step by step to recognize patterns of position where one side has the advantage and how come they have it (what makes their position any different from the other?).. i think when we can recognize most position as superior or inferior that would be the time that we can understand why certain pawn push is advantageous or not..

just a low rated opinion.. you can disregard if you want to..

cheers!

In the first game i would say that the pawn advance is a bit risky, although white isn't going to make much ground a piece down, whereas in the second black is underdeveloped and the knight on the g rank has nowhere to go, hence h4, h5. White could then launch a major attack on black's kingside, the queen would go to c2, bishop b2 possibly, forcing him to castle queen side if he manages to at all. These things are intuitive for me, cold logic for the computer, you really have to see where your opponent is weak or has his pieces out of position.

I played around with the 2nd position with the engine Deep Shredder 12 set to play at about Elo 2800.  In the position on the 2nd board White is ahead in development with a solid center and will soon have the option to safely castle queenside.  The threat with 1.h4 is to follow with 2.h5 which would drive the Ng6 to e7 which would really tie up Black's position, keep the King in the center and leave him even further behind in development.  

So Black has a choice to play 1...h5 which allows 2.Bg5 Be7  3.e5 with advantage to white in space and development or 1...Be7  2.h5 Nh4  3.Nxh4 Bxh4  4.Qg4 Be7  5.e5 (stopping Qxd4) with an even bigger advantage in space and development.

Thank you very much everyone!  I am getting plenty of useful advice and I will start working harder on understanding the concepts of space advantages in a position. 

LOL...then again, I don't suppose chess would be chess without such shenanigans (or so it seems).

As for the second diagram, h4 is not really played as part of a kingside pawn storm.  The idea of h5-h6 can be useful at creating weaknesses and gaining space even if Black doesn't choose to castle on that side.

both sides should be fine with a playable game im not a fun of playing h4 at this game because u usualy try ganing space with g4,h4 when your king is NOT being exposed meaning you are castling on the qween side or some times even staying in the center in this game playing 0-0-0 for white is not a option.

Space allows manuvering... The more space you have, the easier it is to bring your forces into cooperation with each other...  Much of chess is making your pieces have more potential than your opponent's pieces.

Sure if you include g4 with it.  But I don't see why you can't push the h-pawn up and then castle kingside (I've done it before).

Here's a game I just played where I played h4 early on in the game - I haven't looked it over with an engine but I wouldn't be very surprised if it was a top move in the position.

Couldn't resist checking quadrewpie's position with an engine.  Top 4 moves after 6...h6 are Be3, Qe3, Be2 and Bd3 with the main line being 7.Be3 Ne7  8.Bc4 Nf5  9.Bxe6 Nxd4  10.Bxf7+ Kxf7  11.Bxd4 and white is up a pawn with Black having lost castling rights (evaluation +1.5 pawns for white).   After 7.h4 d5 the evaluation is 0.7 pawns up for white.

Whatever all that means...

Be3 threatens Bc4 so it's the first move I'd probably look at (when I'm that much ahead in development I'm not too concerned about gaining space, just gaining more moves).