A coffee-house move!
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Here's a poorly played game of my invention that shows a possible tactic for dealing with h3.
a6 is often played defensively by black in order to prepare a b5 pawn thrust, and also to deprive white's pieces of the b5 square for checking the king or knight pins.
ex:
poooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot
oops i farted
I don't like the move for me personally, because it does weaken my castled posistion. If someone decides to sac a bishop on the pawn at h3 and I have no other option than to recapture with my g pawn or put my king in the open, it makes it tough for me. That's how I feel about that. Although, most of the chess mentor work that I do recommends these moves to stop pins.
EchosMyron: I bet CM recommends such a much when both sides have castled and black doesn't have the option of h5 without opening his own king's protection.
"The best players in the world will sometimes play a3 or h3. Good enough for them; good enough for me."
The best players in the world have blundered away pieces. Good enough for them, good enough for me.
Anyways a3 is a fine (well ok, its dubious since it doesn't fight for an advantage) if you want to play the black openings as white. Its also vertually impossible to refute, just try to work your way into an opening where a3 doesn't mean so much. Andersen played it a few times against morphy actually. h3 isn't recommended as much because it weakens the kingside a wee bit.
When playing Live Chess games I keep encountering players who play a6 or h6 as Black (or a3 or h3 as White).
Quite often this is played early in the opening, and in some cases as the opening move itself!
Chernev, in his excellent Logical Chess: Move by Move describes h3 as "a coffee-house move!" (p.15) and proceeds to damn it since, as done in front of the castled king, it weakens his defences.
Yet I see it time and again and it does succeed in stopping me pinning my opponent's knights with my bishops or moving a knight to a post on g5 or b5 for example.
Since the move is often successful and seriously restrains early attacking chances, can we conclude that Chernev is wrong in his assessment?