By the way, I apologize if my notation is off at some points. I'm a chess novice 
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Nasdorf kingside?
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Cripes!
nasdorf?
Did I use the wrong term? I meant moving the a or h pawn one space up, typically to prevent a knight or bishop from swooping in.
Be patient! I told you, I'm a beginner! :)
joeyd1 wrote:
Did I use the wrong term? I meant moving the a or h pawn one space up, typically to prevent a knight or bishop from swooping in.
Be patient! I told you, I'm a beginner! :)
Okay, now I understand.
Rule of thumb: don't move the pawns in front of your King, unless you have to.
However, each position is particular and requires analysis, to determine the best course of action.
actually white didnt play too bad, i guess im way overrated
Oh, I get it, so he was looking at a game and the comment after 5...a6 was "this is the Najdorf" or something and he thought it meant the pawn move.
Like Shadowknight says, that move in that specific position signals an opening variation called the Najdorf. The name actually refers to the whole position (black and white pieces), not just that 1 pawn move.
Anyway, if you think your opponent is about to attack your king and you only have a move or two to prepare it's better to bring over more devenders / add defenders to the sqaures he's going to attack. If you didn't like the sacrifice on h6 the move g5 didn't help you did it? He just did the same thing on g5.
If you see him building up an attack, before he's ready try to open the position somewhere else (the center is the best) so that you'll get some play and he can't build his attack indefinitely. So the real problem in this game wasn't whether to play h6 or not, but that you didn't realize that on move 12, 13, 14, or 15 d5 should be played.
And as a rule of thumb, if you don't have a pawn on one of the 4 central squares, and you're able to move a pawn there without losing anything, then it's often a good idea. In this game it had the added bonus of balancing out white's attack on the kingside.
Oh, so "nasdorf" if particular to sicilian, it's not a pawn move, but a variation of that moveset... I see. Sorry guys :)
Wafflemaster, I absolutely see what you're saying with D5, how it wouldn't let him indefinetely build his attack, but say he takes the d pawn with his e pawn, then he captures with his knight and I capture with my light squared bishop, what would I have gained? My light squared bishop would be powerless in defending an attack from his dark squared bishop and queen, and I really wouldn't have gained in development. So how would it matter in the end?
Well white still gets an attack. It's not that you stop the attack dead in its tracks but you're giving your pieces more room to maneuver for defense and you're more able to counter punch in the center or queenside. Looking again it's his move Nd2 that signals his kingside intentions. You could have played d5 as early as move 10 and avoided the attack all together.
Lets say you play it on move 13 though. If white takes twice on d5 you're looking pretty good actually. You can play lots of different things to defend g6. Re8 with Bf8. g6 with Bf6-g7. g6 with f5.
d5 as late as move 15 though and it's difficult, white pushes e5 and plays Qh5 piling up on f7... looks pretty tough for black at this point.
I understand. Thank you guys for your help!
I think your play on the queenside (freeing c5, playing a5, Ba6 etc...) took a lot of time without actually doing anything. After 9.0-0 I would have tried to find a way to play d5 in order to attack white's center (right now e5 is attacked, so it does not seem to work right away). Going for an f5-break might be another idea... 20... g5 doesn't look good, although i don't see a convincing continuation, maybe Nh7?
on 17...Bxb5, you mention "just doubling his pawns". It's a common mistake for people starting out that they think doubling pawns in and of itself is a strategic victory. Doubling pawns is only effective if you can attack them or it causes a weakness (opens the kingside for example; however in this case he was able to protect it with c4. Thus all that really happened is you locked down the queenside pawns and traded off your good bishop.
kdl88, but doesn't it weaken his pawn structure, which in endgame is meaningful? I know in this game it didn't matter, but speaking generally, isn't doubling up some sort of victory?
That is correct in some instances, but there is a big difference between dogma and reality. Dogma says all doubled pawns are a weakness. The reality of your game is that you didn't really have a way to attack those pawns, and you created weaknesses in your own pawn structure by removing your good bishop and keeping the bad one. Positionally I feel you actually weakened your position rather than made his worse.
Why are doubled pawns bad? Many reasons, creating isolated pawns, destroying a good pawn chain, destroying a king's cover, creating open files for your rooks, creating outposts for your pieces, the list goes on. You didn't do any of those things with the doubling of the pawns however so you then have to look at the net result of the exchange which was losing your good bishop.
In the endgame it may be meaningful it may not be. Looking at the resulting pawn structure, do you know whether that is good or bad for white and can you explain concretely why? Even if you can, can you REALIZE that plan, i.e. do you know exactly how to exploit the weakness created? If you were so confident on the weakness, did you try to eliminate pieces in order to exploit the endgame weakness?
I ask these questions not in a sarcastic way or whatever, but only to help you understand that dogma is a bad thing in chess. Just ask Carlsen or Nakamura who seem to almost intentionally avoid the "rules"
paulgottlieb wrote:
Playing 17...Bxb5 is a bit more complex than just "doubling his pawns." Every time you trade a bishop for a knight, or vice versa, you're making a significant change in the position. In this case, all of Black's pawns are on dark squares, so his Be7 has virtually no scope. With 17...Bxb5 he trades of his good bishop and leaves all the queenside white squares with no defender. In addition, after 18.axb5, White's a-pawn has become a b-pawn, and pawns increase in value as the get closer to the center. And the pawn on b5 exercises some cramping effect on Black's queenside. It's true that White's pawn is doubled, but it isn't isolated or terribly weak, so it doesn't constitute a serious weakness. All doubled pawns aren't created equal
+1
When I play black and castle kingside, I find myself compelled to nasdorf at some point. However, sometimes the opponent will make a piece sacrifice (bishop for a pawn), destroy my kingside pawn structure, and then he'll often be not far from checkmate.
So, my question is, is nasdorf on the side you castle unsound strategically? Or is there possibly something else I'm doing wrong? Here's a game in which I played as black recently. Thank you for your help!