Playing closed positions with knights on e4 e5

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Avatar of RespectedMAdman

I lost this game I need a lot of help analyzing it as I lose very often in positions like these. Before the pawn breaks on the queen side I was certain that I was winning in an endgame as I had the dark sqaured bishop and his pawns were locked on dark squares. It would be helpful for anyone who has advice to give me concrete variations as well as general principles it would be very appreciated. 

Avatar of pelaajakissa

13 first moves your and your opponents soldiers are in about equal good positions. After that your opponent is active with soldiers to get them forward. Your soldiers are passive, not moving forward.

 

Avatar of wfloh
The problem isn’t due to ‘concrete variations’. The problem is that you were playing on the wrong wing and playing without objective /plan.

By move 13, the centre is fixed. You have one opportunity for pawn break (f5-f4) on the kingside. However this is difficult to achieve. A pawnstorm on the kingside without the f-pawn isn’t going to work since you can’t open lines with a 2-vs-2 situation. Therefore you should be looking at the queenside with breaks like c5.

What happened in the game is the natural conclusion where you are crushed on the wing that you neglected while failing to make headway against a solid defense on the other wing.
Avatar of wajeya
I think you had the right to play on the KS , but you weren’t fast enough to justify ignoring the tension on the QS .
You had 2 positions to play cxb5 when you played h5 and f4 which was the tactical blow .
Avatar of Optimissed

Hi, you could have created an imbalance on move 9 with ...Bxe5. Then ... Ne4 and your N now has c5 at its disposal. I think you're already better by move 9 and you are consolidating your advantage. You'll be playing with 2 knights against N and B where his B isn't so good and his pawns are also worse.

In general, in these positions, don't play ...Bd6 (or Bd3) unless you intend to take with the B because you lose the option to take with the N, so usually the B belongs on e7 (or e2). But in a closed position, you're far better with 2 knights against N and bad B.

29 ... h5 was really bad: you didn't calculate. You could have played 29 ....cb followed by ...a6 and maybe you could still play ...,f4 later, although I think your best chances for a win disappeared around move 9 for the reason I mentioned. I like 9. ...Bxe5. I have no idea what an engine might say: I don't have access to one but you can disregard them in any case in such positions. They haven't much of a clue yet how to program them for positions like that.

Avatar of Optimissed

Btw, I think wfloh is right ... after you went wrong around move 9, the only way to attack is through the centre and to achieve that you must play ... Rc8 and ...c5. It may be that you will soften up his centre and conditions for ...f4 will improve and you could still manage to win.