what the #$%^was he playing and how did he win?

Until we get more games to analyse I've started my project on understanding the basics & underlying concepts of the Stonewall Attack.

I'm publishing it on my Blog so as not to get interupted by comments & to keep it from interupting this thread. It may take a day or 2 to complete & I'm not sure how far I will take it. If I get a lot of questions then at the end I will deal them & any variations but for now it is limited to basic structures & concepts.

So if anyone wants to check it out go to my profile. If you see a mistake or have a question or a suggestion let me know please.

I'm off the painkillers so I'm starting to think straight again. I may even have a game to post in a day or2

good, thanks QueenTakesKnight. I'll have a game to post tonight too. No names, no win, just the moves. From chess club. 

Hmmmm, should I try to guess the winner?

Look foward to it

I've got the 1st part of the tutorial up on my blog, its not a bad format to do this sort of stuff. I'll post more tomorrow.

Using blogs may be a good way to create a repository of openings we want to analyse, good format without the thread problems & its available just for those who need it rather than interupt what we are doing here.

sounds good QTKO. I'll look for it tonight after I come back from chess club. thanks, 

I'll have some time to post tomorrow evening. I've just been very busy today. I can't wait to really study queenTakesKnights blog on the Stonewall attack, and to go over the other material, including the game aronchuck posted. I just need some sleep tonight. 

It's been quiet for a while so I'll throw this game in 'til we get some new stuff. It's a lower level club game so plenty of alternative lines to explore.

thanks QTKO. I have a tournament game at 430 PM ET today. Wish me luck! I'll definitely post it, and I'll study this game you just posted later tonight, because I won't get to the computer again till game time this afternoon. Thanks for posting; I haven't at all forgotten about this thread, I've just been dealing with stuff like a car tire that needs replacing in a size that no one has, and other such mundane things. 

I just quickly looked at it. Its nice. A stonewall. I didn't have time to analyze it, but I enjoyed it!  I'll analyze it tonight. thanks again!

Good luck with the game, we'll look forward to analysing a nice win with Queen sacrifice leading to a smothered mate

I just played and lost a game, but I'm n ot upset about it. I think I played very well, and I just did n't know how to win the game. I can 't post it because I'm on a machine that can't handle pgn files, so I'm asking anyone on here to post my game with BarrySmith2 to the thread. I played the stonewall, and I saw the dreaded finachettoed black bishop, and I proved to myself that the fianchettoed bishop is NOt a refutation of the stonewall. It seemed to me that I had to sacrifice something to checkmate the black king, but I couldn't figure out what it was. I believe I had a winning game, but then foudn myself unable to figure out how to win it, and so I lost it. Anyways, I'm oretty proud of how I hadnled it except for the last ten moves or so, when I clearly was just waiting for the opponent to take the intitative and win the game because I didn't know how. Please post my game, and comment away. And it looks like there may be a post from aronchuck, that I will go and read now. I can't do any annotations until I get home later tonight. Please annotate away. thanks everyone. QTKO, I'm eager to see what you have to say about how I handled the stonewall, at least the earlier parts of it. 

I imagine I should have just taken the finachettoed bishop right away, and then retaken with my Q. Not doing so gave away time which my opponent used to advantage. Live and learn. 

oh, I see, its aronchuck commenting on qtko game. I can't wait to read this. thanks folks! 

qtko, I wish it had been a queen sacrifice leading to a smothered mate, but I just didn't have the knight I needed to make a smothered mate work. Maybe that was my mistake...letting my knights go. 

my opponent posted this annotation to our game, but I can't do an annotation until late tonight or tomorrow, as I have no pgn capability on this machine I'm on tonight ( a chromebook...no pgn capacity and no java)

and sorry for posting my opponent's annotations before posting just the game. I wasn't supposed to post a game with the names, identities, and result. I was just feeling restricted because I couldnt access the pgn, so I posted his annotation. I'll get to look all this over tomrrow. goodnite. I think my opponent's annotation was pretty good though. 

@ Somebodysson

Nice game, I can see the improvement, you took on the most difficult defence against the Stonewall Attack & played all the right moves until he launched the counter attack. It took a computer to point out a better move 12/- fxe5 but your opponent missed that line too. At move 14/- you have a nice c2 – d5 Pawn chain & the Black DSB is biting on granite as they say. Your Bishop pair have room to move & it all looks solid.

The problem was to crack open the black Kings position before the Queenside Pawn advance became a problem. With 2 minor pieces gone you were a bit short on material for a quick assault on blacks King. Even if you could mount a sacrifice you probably needed another piece on the board to do so & have enough left to Mate him afterwards. Some lines of the Stonewall use a double sacrifice but they start with all the pieces still on the board & you didn't have that luxury.

I think 17/- Bh6 was a flawed concept. His DSB is doing nothing for now & exchanging it off costs you another piece & meanwhile on the Queenside the Pawns are coming! At move 19/- Blacks Queenside attack is in full swing with Rooks & Pawns all well placed. All your attention should be focused here for now. 20/- c4? Allows Black to break up the Pawn structure & create the passed Pawn that eventually was your downfall. Your play seemed a bit confused from this point on & I'm not surprised. There are techniques for dealing with these type of Pawn pushes but I don't expect you to know them at this point.

That just a quick impression, I need to analyse it in more depth (or be lazy & wait for aronchuck to do it better)

I've analysed the opening & finished with the computer position because I think it is important enough for Somebodysson to take note of if he plays this line again in the future against a similar defence. As you mentioned in a previous post this position seems to justify Whites choice of opening so I suggest you play around with it for future reference.

excellent. yes, that fxe5 would have changed the game completely. It just shows that I need to remain flexible and react creatively to conditions on the board. I responded with Nxe5 because I thought 'the Ne5 is all important in the Stonewall. I brought my N from b1-d2-f3 precisely to replace the other N on e5 in case of ...NxNe5. I have to continue with that plan. 

This is precisely the case of knowing just enough to create problems. I thought I needed the Ne5, and so didn't see the massive advantage of fxe5. It is so obvious now. I will defintely remember this.

The thing I was proud of is that 1. I remembered ths tonewall opening 2. I remembered why the moves 3. I didn't panic when I saw the black finachetto plan and remembered that you had said 'its not a refutation' so I trusted that with correct play I could have a playable game.

I will look at aronchucks analysis later today. I have another game scheduled for very late tonight, another chess.com tournament game. I will post it, and tonight before the game I will have time for lots of analysis of QTKOs game and aronchucks several analyses, and the anaylsis my opponent posted from last night. 

Well, I lost my analysis of QTKO's game because of a power problem (I should save my work more often), but I couldn't find none of the things aronchuk suggested nevertheless, which just shows that even if I kind of understand what is going on I still can't find moves that accurately relate to the plans at hand. But at least I had some of the options in mind, just that I failed to realize when was the right time to make those moves (for example, the ...Ne4 idea), which just may be what happened to Black in this game. However, since the last games we've been analysing I've been trying to find plans for both sides, specially when they involve other things than attacking the enemy king (remember what we talked about about a week ago?) and the awareness is slowly improving, and I hope that the same is happening to the other followers of this thread (if they also have this problem, of course!).

And a comment for those interested in the mentality of the beginner player, I made the observation that many times I "drown" in the possibilites, even if I methodically ask the questions we've been working on and use the answers as a guide, I keep looking at the possibilities probably more deeply than what is required by the position. Like I'm trying to overcalculate everything (which is easier to do while analysing but inefficient on the board). The important part of this is: "Why am I tempted to do this? (and other beginner players with similar characteristics)". And I think the answer is that, since I don't know how to evaluate positions because of a huge lack of knowledge, I try to find a tangible excuse to make a move, because I'm afraid to make a move I can't explain in a concrete way, and for my level a concrete advantage is either an advantage in material or a heavily restricted opponent. That's probably why it's been easier for me to try plans to attack the enemy king, and the preference towards open positions instead of closed positions.

Well, I hope this comments are of use, and thank you aronchuk for another wonderful lesson! I'll analysie SBS's game as soon as I have time.

In similar positions in my games, I have always wanted to post a knight on e5 but find that a pawn there works out much better as suggested  and QueenTakesKnightOOPS's explanatin  lines up with what I have xperienced.  Especially frustrating when opponent just somehow  makes your last knight disappear and you have one less piece for attack.