Combating Pawn Storms

Way back in the day, Mark Buckley, and Matthew Beelby were the 2 best players where i lived.  They ended up playing a match, but i have no remembrance of who won.

Put my money on Mark.  Loved the way he could analyze any position.

I've been trying to dig out a game where I smoked my opponent's pawn storm. I will eventually find it, but I've played hundreds of games since then. 

I don't think it would actually help the OP though. I had to do a lot of calculating and some hard positional choices. I wasn't worried about losing, but just how deep I had to go down the rabbit to win.

That's the point. It is neither easy to launch a sound attack nor to defend.  It all depends on the position.  Theory on this is shown in The Art of the Middlegame.  It still takes a lot of analysis; one has to go deeper and deeper into the analysis rabbit hole, as well as make the best decisions about the positions.

Just a learning opportunity, nothing more.

Marky, we all make mistakes.  All human contests are just won because of mistakes.  It is about learning how to cut down on major errors.  Still learning how to do that myself.  Lol.

I suppose that you're confusing threats with piece activity. The mechanics of piece activity are deeper than a single threat. 1-move threats lead to the following defensive options: Ignore, defend, intercept, move, create a stronger threat (some may not be possible when it's the King who's being threatened). Piece activity, on the other hand, goes into enforcing concessions (material, time, space, coordination, weaknesses) and, more often than not, into tying down the defenders, thus creating a paralysis effect on some or the whole enemy army. And, more than anything, piece activity is about plans that grow into stronger and stronger threats.

On this, a recent example comes from AlphaZero games. The engine didn't create new plans but followed some that most masters rejected as insufficient to keep the paralysis effect up. If anything, AlphaZero's games suggest that piece activity is more important than what was understood... and is not that masters didn't know a thing or two on piece activity: Check the following games:

And this one was played in blitz (!!):

A final note: That thing of "chess is filled with paradox" because "for every rule, one can find an exception" if anything says that those "so-called rules" didn't withstand testing, and should be regarded as guidelines and valid only in some circumstances... at most. And if you ask me why are those "rules" still mentioned, I'd say that because beginners have an easier time understanding (an believing in) them, and also because some chess authors don't want to say that the product they're selling doesn't work when facing the real thing.

Edit: The game Tal–Keller, Zurich 1959, isn't loading. You can see it here unannotated:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1139481

I am not confusing threats with piece activity.  First, threats can be ignored.  Tal made a career out of ignoring threats, strong threats, no one movers.  Second, even your rule about piece activity is not absolute. Numerous examples exist in chess history of grandmasters who had great activity, but eventually lost it and the game. 

To use Alpha games as an example, while interesting, is also not telling the whole story.  Those games are too new to use as a basis for claiming only piece activity is to be sought after.  All the elements in chess must be weighed.  No one element is more important than another, except in a concrete position.

  Even what an opponent plays is as important as all known chess elements because even if he plays a dubious move, the position could suddenly take on an entire new character of its own. 

Finally, I have not even talked about combinations, the true paradox of chess(pardon pun), which could overwhelm all built- up piece activity.  Chess is too complicated.  It truly is a jungle to play in.

Well, I gave three examples showing how piece activity is the key feature when evaluating a position. I'd love to see an example of yours where a GM wins a game without developing activity whatsoever on the rival's position. A K+Q vs. K ending can't be won without developing activity, while a K+2N vs. K can't usually be won because the initiative gets stalled.

With due respect, I believe that you equal piece activity with attacking. If so, they're not the same. While an attack is based on activity, not all activity is an attack. This is because an attack typically compromises our position to some degree, while activity can be used even to get free tempos (due to forcing passive defensive moves) when moving pieces around the board.

On games where an attacker is stopped and loses, it's not because piece activity is not important, but usually because the attacker failed to consider the strength of the defender's activity if and when the attack is stopped (not to mention mistakes and blunders which make life easier for the defender).

For example, a King attack may not end in checkmate, but if in material advantage, as a result, we go for it. On the opposite side, an attack may be stopped and the attacker left with an untenable position (no matter if not in material disadvantage).  Examples of this can be found in games between Tal and Kortchnoi, where Kortchnoi sometimes allowed Tal's initiative under the comprehension that he would be capable of stopping it and then counterattack (which he did over and over again with success).

To clarify this: Sometimes beginners are taught to threat something at every chance. That's not telling the whole story. Yes, it's good to threat but we must also consider the reply or replies to our "attacks" and, above all, evaluate if there are basis for our activity and if the resulting positions are better than what we have now. That's why we use material, space, time and pawn structures as criteria on the soundness of our activity, or why we try to increase these before compromising our positions with active moves. From not doing this correctly is why terms such as "unjustified" and "premature" were coined. And this explains the results between Tal and Kortchnoi: Kortchnoi was better at the evaluation of the defensive resources of his positions, which in turn came from conclusions on the analysis of the mixture of material, space, time and pawn structures (Kasparov doesn't use pawn structures but Quality of Position, which leads to a deeper understanding of the mix).

Finally, combinations are the old name for some forms of piece activity (material exchanged for unstoppable threats based on time and space). So, no paradox. Also, no one (other than you in your previous post) has said that "only piece activity is to be sought after", but that piece activity is the most important characteristic when analyzing a position, and that piece activity is composed of material, space, etc. Which means that if no activity or basis to engage in it, then we must work on the creation of conditions for its existence... while denying the same to our opponents.

I believe that piece activity can be attacking or defending, not one exclusive of the other.  Also I think that you are lumping all the chess elements together and calling this piece activity.  Do I understand you correctly?

Pawn storm are intimidating. What helped me was learning to keep the 3 king pawns solid and not give opponent a hook, or target. Often they just lose puff. Counter in centre or Q side. Don't panic.

Piece activity is, essentially, developing threats. However, it goes beyond as those threats need to be logically justified (on the previous post I detailed how to justify them), either to support a logical plan, to seize an opportunity, or to put obstacles on the development of the rival's plan (denying critical material, time and, or squares).

So, back to this thread's topic, there's no general rule against a pawn storm because there's no certainty of who has faster and stronger threats. For example, using this thread's game, White emailed he was planning long castle and a kingside attack when developing Qc2, Bd2, and pawns on e3 and d4. Understanding this, the proper reaction was Pc7–c5 (opening the center) instead of Pc7–c6, and in no circumstances to move Ph7–h6, as it created a breaking point in g5. Anyways, with both the "c" and "d" files opened, it would have been more difficult for White to attack the kingside. So, Black's passive play transformed the rival's dubious plan into a valid one. Even so, Black could still develop activity on the queenside, based on Pb7–b5, but he wasted two tempos (Nbd7, Qc7). After that, there was no chance to play active because White's attack was developing too fast. Then you can see, the moment Black lost his chances to play active (active defense), is the moment Black got in troubles.

So can you say in word or so how you define piece activity?   I would define it by what squares a piece controls or potentially controls.  You do not seem to be saying this.

I used one word: Threats.

So no threat, no piece activity?

@Nwap111: Well, now you may understand why beginner's books keep talking about the rules of Steinitz (open lines, weak pawns, center control, etc.). I remember reading a book, long ago, where the author said that we should count the squares under control to know who had space advantage (??!!).

On piece activity, the concept involves the present, latent, and potential threats for both players. For example, a Rook in the 7th rank may only be attacking a pawn or two, but even if the pawns are well defended the activity may be evident because the control it exerts over key squares needed by the rival's pieces to, in turn, coordinate and activate his pieces.

Another aspect can be seen when a central pawn formation gives extra space (for example, d4–e4 vs. d6–e6). Under Steinitz and Tarrasch, that was supposed to give an advantage. When evaluated by activity, it matters the pressure exerted against that pawn center, in the sense that if it can advance or is tying down several pieces to its defense (so, more room but no "free" pieces to take advantage from it, hence no activity). And even if no pressure, it also matters the number of minor pieces on the board, because fewer won't need that many free squares to coordinate.

All that said, piece activity is mostly about coordination (several pieces working on a square or logically related squares, from a threat (or threats) point of view. Coordination is necessary because it increases the global value of the pieces, as regardless of what we're taught about the value of material, all pieces –by themselves– have a mechanical attack value of 1 and defense value of 0. Then, by coordinating them (in attack and defense) we –artificially– increase such values.

Check the following game. After White's 7th move it looks like White will be able to complete his development and use the extra room to support a pawn push or paralyze Black's game, and an ending doesn't look that bad because of the pawn edge. Stockfish replies by giving up a pawn to destroy White's center with 7...c5 and 8...Nc6, thus getting room for his minor pieces. However, Black is till 3 pawns down and is not clear how will he coordinate the minor and heavy pieces, as the natural square for his King (h7) is covered with x–rays. And we get 10...h6 and 11...g5!!, with the idea getting clear after 18...Kg7, disregarding rules such as "don't leave your King uncovered by advancing the pawns in front of him. Quite an impressive game from SF.

Game leaves me breathless.  Tal would be proud and Bronstein, even the ghost of Nez.  But I could not see a human play like that.  Beautiful game.  Computer chess has come a long way since Boris.  Lol.

Not Spassky.  He is not a ghost.  The computer program Boris, first came of 1979.  

It might have been after him...or just to be generic-russian sounding, commercial for american consumption.  Not sure.