Positional Inferiority

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Avatar of gisg
  1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 d5 5.a3 BxNc3 6.QxBc3 Ne5 7.Qc2 0-0 8.e3 Nd7

 Will any one plzz help me what are Black's positional inferiority and how will White take advantage of it: Sorry i can't insert the image here.

Avatar of notmtwain
gisg wrote:
d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 d5 5.a3 BxNc3 6.QxBc3 Ne5 7.Qc2 0-0 8.e3 Nd7

 Will any one plzz help me what are Black's positional inferiority and how will White take advantage of it: Sorry i can't insert the image here.


Black gave up the two bishops to white without creating any weakness in white's pawn structure. White took two extra moves to save his pawn structure. Having castled, black has a slight lead in development.  

I don't think that white has much of a positional edge in the short term.

Avatar of Blunt_Force_Trauma
White took two extra moves to save his pawn structure.

As White, I recapture the Bishop with the b-pawn in this position. The pawns are not effectively doubled, since ...d5 has been played, White could recapture at any time and undouble his pawns. It looks more accurate to first play e3 before a3, allowing your Bishop to defend c4 from the d5 pawn.

White has some positional advantage. One being the Bishop pair. You exploit this by placing your dark-squared Bishop on an active diagonal, which Black cannot contest, because he has no counterpart to it. The other being a little more central control due to his c4-pawn. There isn't a whole lot to say about it. White needs to catch up in development, Castle Kingside (almost certainly) and decide where he would like to play--probably either in the centre or on the Queenside, and position his pieces to generate play there.

I will tell you that the only strong moves for White at this point are Bf4, Nf3 and e3.

Avatar of pfren
Blunt_Force_Trauma wrote:

As White, I recapture the Bishop with the b-pawn in this position.

This fully justifies 4.Qc2. For your opponent, that is.

On the other hand 4.Qc2 d5 5.e3 is quite playable, although after 5...0-0 or 5...c5 Black should equalize without particular trouble. Still, it's a valid way to play "out of book" as white- maybe Carlsen will make a new fashion using it, who knows...

Black has many ways to handle this position- but once he opts for ...Ne4, then his only choice is sharp play against white's center, say 6.Qxc3 Ne4 7.Qc2 and the current fashion is 7...c5, while also 7...Nc6 with ...e5 in mind has been played a lot. If you surrender the bishop pair without forcing any structural liabilities to your opponent, then you must find another way to compensate- and here it's the development preponderance which was caused by Qc2-c3-c2 plus a2-a3.

Avatar of gisg
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Avatar of gisg

Thnx guys i got it . I wish i can crush Carlsen sooner