Long term the IQP is a weakness, and the opponent should be thinking of the following:
· Active development,
· Blockading the pawn.
· Trading pieces, where the IQP becomes a weakness in the endgame.
· Generally defensive ideas – slow your opponents attack.
The side with the IQP, should strive for the following:
· Trade off the IQP.
· Avoid exchanges.
· Attack. Keeping the pressure off of the IQP.
· Active piece play.
IMHO it was on move 18+19 that you were most lost plan wise. Your disadvantage is the isolated queen pawn -- it is nicely blockaded, and a lot of pieces have already been traded off. You have no real activity to compensate for the weakness. So you are at a disadvantage, but its potentially manageable if you are prepared to dig in and defend, playing a move like nxd4 or rc8. It would be normal to also look at ne5, often it is this lovely outpost that gives activity to compensate for the isolated pawn, but it turns out that in this specific position its more optics than anything, and doesn't help shore up your weakness. Nh7 is worse though -- after 19 nh7, white just plays nxn, pxn, qa4 and your not going to stop white from winning the weak pawn.
I'd like to share with you a similar position, which will help illustrate some strategic ideas:
Now, let's compare the exact same position but without the Bishops:
As a general rule, if all your pawns (and especially central pawns) are on light squares, you don't want to trade your dark-square Bishop (and vice-versa). Also, if you have pawn weaknesses, you generally want to avoid exchanges. Pawn weaknesses are felt most prominently in the endgame, so avoiding the endgame is a good strategy.
You violated both these strategical rules: you traded your good Bishop, and then you voluntarily entered into a worse pawn structure (isolated pawn) and then immediately tried to trade another set of Bishops. The reason you felt like you had no plan was because your position was strategically worse. The only thing you can realistically do is sit back and defend.
As such, you made a series of moves that were fine by themselves (Bb4-xd2 is not a blunder, and Bh3-xg2 doesn't lose anything), but they were strategically dubious. As every exchange irrevocably changes the position, it would be useful to think in terms of plans before every exchange. If you do this, you likely do not enter an isolated pawn position after trading your dominant Bishop, for instance. Hope that helps.
You got a nice IQP position as Black, since there is no real pressure against d5.
But the whole plan of ...Qc8/Bh3/Bxg2 and ...Nh7/Nf8/Ne6/Nxd4 is both time consuming, and positionally not desirable: It is to WHITE'S interest to exchange as many pieces as possible when the opponent has an IQP!
"One thing though you didn't do was analyse your game and post your thoughts.You don't need to work only during the game but also after the game ends or a lot of your hard work during the game goes wasted.You don't want that , do you?"
I must remedy this shortcoming of mine as well.
You got a nice IQP position as Black, since there is no real pressure against d5.
But the whole plan of ...Qc8/Bh3/Bxg2 and ...Nh7/Nf8/Ne6/Nxd4 is both time consuming, and positionally not desirable: It is to WHITE'S interest to exchange as many pieces as possible when the opponent has an IQP!
Well said. To fill in a few gaps for middle-rated players, an Isolated Queen's Pawn position (IQP) has both advantages and disadvantages.
The disadvantages include the isolated Pawn itself, which may easily become weak; the complex of weak squares surrounding it (all dark squares in this case); and the square directly in front of the IQP (d4 in this case) which will be a strong operations base for White pieces.
The advantages include a fairly fluid piece development, good open files for both Rooks (on the e- and c- files), some rather nebulous King's side attacking possibilities, and strong operations bases for your Knights at e4 and c4.
But these advantages mean nothing unless you can keep plenty of pieces on the board. Development, attacking possibilities, Knight maneuvers in the center... all require an army of pieces to back them up. Meanwhile, your opponent's advantages (such as the weak Pawn itself and the weak dark-squares surrounding it) are still good in the end-game.
One of the sources of your trouble was that you didn't try to energetically push the advantages of your IQP. Instead, you started trading pieces, and each trade brings your opponent closer to that favorable endgame he was hoping for.
In IQP endgames (this I learned from Silman's book How To Reassess Your Chess; it is a good and informative book that you should read):
The side with the IQP, you, has to do the following things:
-Try to avoid minor piece trades, which is exactly what you did with Bh3. The reason for this is because you need to play with energy, and minor pieces help.
-Control open files! This will direct attention away from your only weakness, the IQP.
-Try to trade off both rooks, but not the queen. The reason you don't want to trade off the queen is so that it is too dangerous for the other side's king to join the fight against the IQP. The rooks thing is to try to take off the pressure from the IQP.
-Try to advance the pawn if it can be done soundly. This will help keep your position active and create threats, something essential to playing with an IQP.
Generally, you want to avoid playing passively.
I played this game today in a tournament, during the game I felt it was mostly equal throughout, but struggled to find a plan to follow and work with.
In this game, playing as black, what plans should I have developed? (Ignore the hideous blunder at the end...)
Many thanks