Space addicts...

New guy walks into our informal chess club, and within his first 3 days there we all observe that he is in love with the idea of pushing pawns. My buddy says "if there's a possible pawn capture on the board, we can count on this dude to push forward instead." He is BRACING us like crazy, choking us a bit. Now the guy knows some opening theory, has a decent sense of danger, and there are certain types of open, tactical positions that he simply doesn't play well.

So. My purpose for typing all this is that I'd like anyone's feedback on how to adapt to this kind of casual club player. Obviously, when reviewing book games, by GM's, etc., such reckless pawn storming is coldly, logically punished. But we are not GM's... Also, is there anything to the idea that he pushes pawns to lock up these positions because he's a closed player, he's just more 'comfortable' worrying about 'less?' That you could argue this is an attempt to hide his tactical inability? I've taken to saying that this guy "Flings Pawns the way a Bull Flings Earth"... 

He is "BRACING" you? Sorry, I'm unfamiliar with this slang usage. What does that mean? Do you need braces?

Why doesn't somebody write down some of the games of this mastermind?

you can attack like mad.... this would ripoff the position. Well if you can, just try to attack his weaknesses, and if an organized attack gets insane, he won't be able to defend well. Finally, analyze possibilities. Use outposts and attack from wherever you find any weakness, and always do DAP check. Any weakness is not a weakness unless you can exploit it, remember.

Sorry ;-), by 'bracing', i mean cramping. he rams pawn wedges into most of the players at the club, and they have no space. He seems proficient at then exploiting the situation due to how he only has to focus on a few key squares, a few critical moves he has to prevent, and lo and behold, you suffocate and die. He gets a grip before he cracks the whip. 

Also, in blitz games or slow ones, he seems set on playing e6, then d5 or c5, usually both with black. He also will PUSH c5-c4 from the black side of any French setup, which to my experience seems criminal. The worst way to handle a french is to imprison all your pieces on the queenside, especially the 'bad' Bishop on c8. I will say this though; in 3/4 of MY blitz games with him, i tried to adapt and chop his pawns to bits with my own. The resulting positions were much more open, and he misses a lot of tactical shots. He goes down. I posted this after a lot of the other players asked me how I did it!

If he's low rated, you can study or look for traps. Offering a sacrifice or delivering tactics or making plans can be done. Just take care about his space in that case. I'd uncover all my pieces and just kill him with then if I get any chance. You can also play like him against Stockfish to see best replies. See any sacrifice which does not leave you behind, I suggest you Philidors defence or exchange lopez to open positions and attack, else have a draw in that position by 50 move rule if you don't want any risks. There are some telepathy sort of tricks that can also be used.

Telepathy is probably out (great idea, btw...?) as this gentlemen is recently arrived from the Philippines and has some HORRENDOUS, unforgiving bodily odor. Every day. Last night he brought in a 28-ounce plastic tub of sour cream that he's been working on for a week. He leaves it in his car, in the sun. It had a hint of vomit and diapers about it...

People began to gag. He smiled and said in heavily accented english: "...so,...this is my Weapon. Ha!"

We need your help.

Well, telepathy is a sort of hypnosis if you have great control.

What it means is that strongly think the move you want him to play. This won't work at once, but after some time that you've practiced this type of telepathy, the opponent will continuously see the move you're thinking and eventually play it. I've tried it many times, when someone simply moved a knight when there was intense checkmate pressure(It began with the Patzer Opening trap). I play KP:Patzers Opening against significantly low rated opponents to finish off quickly. Not discussing here about openings, I'd say that if you can see the opponent(not sure if it works in network games), think the move you want him to play so strongly that he can not analyze any other move. This also involves looking at affected pieces and such squares.

You can also look at work of war philosophers like Sun Tzu or Chanakya.

Space backfires when the opponent opens lines and infiltrates.  Space works for you when you open lines and use your superior mobility (or just superior numbers) to attack an area where the opponent necessarily must have less mobility or less numbers.

When they advance many pawns, on both wings and the center, then there is at least 1 (and probably 2) areas where their space can backfire on them (they will have too few pieces to prevent infiltration).

Also, if you're opening classically while he's pushing forward, then you're probably seeing pawn chains similar to these:

Generally speaking, this divides the board into two, each player seeking play on the side where they have more space.  I mention this to caution you against reacting "defensively" to him playing on "his side."  The correct action (whenever available) is to seek your own play.  I.e. press your trumps by playing on "your side."  e.g. in the first diagram white will think first of playing on the kingside while black will look towards the queenside.  If white moves pawns on the queenside or black on the kingside thinking they're good defensive moves then the player runs the risk of accelerating the opponent's play (because it brings the pawns in contact faster, so lines are opened faster).

Finally, if he's locking up the whole board, there are two bits of advice I have.  First is to have it in your mind the option to keep pawn abreast (especially in the center) and resist the urge to move them.  e.g.

It may frustrate him if you refuse to play e5.  If he continues his attack down a flank, then open a line in the center (with exd) and "magically" his flank pressure will be lessened.

The second piece of advice is to start looking for where you can sacrifice a piece for two pawns.  If you do this in an area where you have more space, you can sometimes get a pawn roller going giving you a big attack or promote a pawn.

Last thing you can do is to beat him his way. Grab all spacce you can and keep some no man's land. It won't be a problem if you sacrifice a minor piece for pawns since he isn't a good tactical player. Open the position before he improves his position.

If he played against Philidor or Morphy, he'd punish the pawn moves. That technique was something. I'd suggest you try some games from Kasparov, Morphy, Philidor, Alekhine or Fischer. Also, there are others like Spassky or Karpov, so thats not all.

Empire Chess DVD 51 is free to download till 31st May. Rest, bundles are 50% discount with code MAY50. They can be found on onlinechesslessons.net at bottom, though I recieved email. You can try out such things, and that DVD 51 is based on attacks, a 229 MB file.

Post some of his games. Thing is that if you look out always, there are many free pieces available. I've suffered due to this many times, even in straightforward captures, else none could defeat me and I'd have another 400-500 points of rating.

You can analyze or ask others to do so, to see what can be done. Look the books of Alekhine's Defence or King's Gambit(especially muzio or lolly variation), the two most risky openings but good if you just want something to attack.

Best you can still do is to follow Botvinnik's advice and analyze your games. There are tools like Lucas Chess(Windows only) which do it for you.

If the player the OP is talking about was bad enough to just be hanging pieces then I don't think he would be finding it difficult to beat him... And there's no need to play super risky openings to try to beat someone you struggle against, by doing that you're probably just increasing your risk of losing. Just try to play accurate moves and take advantages of the weaknesses that will inevitably develop if he pushes his pawns excessively. I think I remember someone saying if your opponent takes an unsound approach, don't always try to punish it immediately as often it's better to wait and the opponent will have trouble in the long run.

Best way to defeat someone is to do what he doesn't know about. That's some psychologic approach to win. I don't always play best moves, but moves that may make me win fastest against that opponent(only in real life games when I know him well).

The two openings I suggested may disregard opening principles, but are old and not too popular. If his regular play just can't win, doing some not-too-risky tricks is good. I think what OP needs is an object to attack, and Alekhine's Defence gives a ready to reap pawn centre while King's Gambit offers great attack on kingside. And maybe he won't know what to do against Muzio Gambit.

Finally, there is none who never misses anything. I still remember a match against TarraschToy where a pin could make me win but I missed it and lost. I remember some online games where I missed even simple captures.

Playing best lines is always the best, but being tricky often brings some fruit without pressurizing much on brain.

I don't think risking a or 2 games to win is a big deal. One can use his subconcious mind to force a move on the opponent, but that would take a lot of concentration and practice, so trickery is a good option for particular goals.

I see what you mean. But you can't deny that outplaying your opponent is more satisfying than simply 'tricking' him :P

yeah these are all good comments; thanks for thinking about your responses. Just a quick update- so last night at my club he sits down next to me and plays 3 (hour-long) games with this older gentlemen who's around 1650 or so. The Space Addict in all 3 games achieves a massive penetration on the queenside with pawns, pawns, pawns, and his opponent resigned all 3 games by move 30. He was facing 3 connected passers with an outposted knight, on top of a difficult Q & R endgame. I couldn't help thinking that this guy should have adapted from each game to the next, but couldn't. He shuffled home shaking his head. Again.

Next the Space Addict sat with me and we banged out the clock. I was warmed up, and so 1st game I told him during the opening frenzy that I'm playing "Anti-(name) chess" and did what one of you suggested; I BRACED him all over the board, just choked him to death. Now, as you might imagine, this was like a bomb in his mind. He slowed WAY down, looked for ways to give me a knight for 2 important pawns, sac, open lines, etc., and he ended up tricking me out of a minor piece. I was still better, and then he got 3 connected passers down on my queenside. My King & knight couldn't stop them all, and so after he promoted, he then relaxed and made a silly error; with 23 seconds left he checked me where my only remaining piece could capture his queen. He smiles and resigns. 

The next few blitz games, I seem to have temporarily 'cured' him of this ambitious nonsense, as he played more solid, traditional openings. I smashed him, and even suckered him nicely in one game within say 18 moves or so. I would love to post some games but they're blitz, you know, they're fast. Also I have no idea how to get those nifty blue and white diagrams to appear. 

Click the little box that looks like a chessboard on the top left of the comment box and follow the instructions to paste in a pgn file or enter a position from scratch.  If it doesn't work, use the edit button and keep playing with it.

The easiest rule of thumb in a closed position is to play on the side your pawns are pointing to. That happens to be the side you have more space on. It usually works out.

The point is that anyone who gets space would like to close the position and have a plan, as OP said in 1st post.

And this doesn't always work out, because pawns aren't stretching to 2nd-6th rank, so rooks can't come out. Knights can go anywhere and a bishop is also stopped due to opponent's pawns.

Tell me his username(if on chess.com) or wherever you played games or the pgn file if you have. I'll post them here for you.