Well you made the sacrifice on g4 so you knew what his weakness was - he had no way to defend that knight without the g pawn. His mistake was 12. g4.
I think playing g4 (or g5 as black) in front of a castled king is generally pretty risky when the enemy queen is in the area, especially if the knight on f3 is pinned with no way to defend it after the sac. So I don't play g4 or g5 without first calculating what happens if my opponent sacrifices there.
Thanks!
That seems in line with how I approach it, too, but I feel like I see a lot of much stronger players do it fairly often, and it's a huge mystery to me.
Maybe when I see them do it, the enemy queen isn't able to get over to that side of the board so easily and that's what I've been missing.
I'll keep my eyes peeled and post any high-rated games where it happens here.
Also, in looking back over the game here in this thread, it looks my move 19. Rad8 was superfluous and I should have just gone right to Qh4 instead. I think.
MissileLaunchers wrote:
My first post here--hi everybody!
This was a 5:00 blitz game and it seems (to me) that I got the advantage once he pushed the pawns in front of his king.
I almost never do this myself, as it usually gets me in trouble, but I've seen plenty of experts do it with success.
Are there general guidelines on when to do this and when not to do it? And what about when to accept/refute it if your opponent does it to you?
My opponent here has a much higher rating, so did he just make a blunder that I don't see (I'm not so great at analyzing games), or what?
And since this situation is pretty common, what all should I be considering in the future when it arises?
Any other thoughts about the game are welcome of course, too.
Thanks!
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Estragon's post is right on the money. But the general guidelines for when to advance the pawns in front of your castled K are the following:
1. Look at the situation in the center when you are considering a flank attack.
A. If the situation with the pawns and pieces in the center is open and fluid, in almost all cases a flank attack with pawns in front of your K is a mistake
B. It is a mistake because when the center is open and fluid your opponent can counter attack in the center. The surest way to --stop, thwart, cause it to fail-- a flank attack is to counterattack in the center.
2. If the situation in the center is blocked by pawns and pieces and cannot easily unblocked, then a flank attack by advancing the pawns in front of your castled K will succeed.
A. Your opponent cannot counterattack in the center if it is blocked.
B. If your opponent attempts to unblock the center it is imperative for you to keep the center blocked.
Great stuff, thanks!
12.g4 is a good move, and the sacrifice on g4 not correct. The simple 15.Qe2 (with the quite obvious intention of Qe3/e4/e5) seems to bust the whole idea. Still, this sacrifice isn't bad for a 5-minute game, as white needs to be precise.
It always weakens your kingside/ king's position. The point is if you get some sort of compensation for it. Kicking minor pieces away from useful squares (usually to undermine a central square) is a common theme. And of course as part of an attack in general (although you'd want the center closed).
In this position it's not a big positional question, white simply picks up some material, so unless black has an attack it's worth it. Black doesn't so white goes for the pawn.
As mentioned, pushing pawns creates weaknesses. When judging whether this is ok, you want to figure out if your opponent can actually take advantage of the weaknesses. For example, if you played g4 to weaken your f4 square, can black occupy it right away, or will it take him four moves just to threaten to do it, meanwhile you're building up an attack on his king. Or maybe you just win a pawn and are happy with that.
If you can't point to an important gain by pushing your pawn forward, (such as controlling a square absolutely essential to the position), then it's good to be cautious and avoid making weaknesses, because you never know when you might be regretting that your pawns can't move backwards. If it does achieve something positive, then weigh out the positives vs the negatives.
The point about a securely blocked centre must be right and I rather think the other consideration is how many pieces (particularly the heavy pieces) each side has on the kingside. If you have a marked preponderance - have a go.
But I rather think that I have seen pawn storms in master games where it was far from clear to me that these preconditions were met. Perhaps they had been able to calculate that their attack landed first?
Anyway I am like you, my pawns stay close to my king until the end game - and sometimes even then. A weakness in my game is that I hate to offer the enemy targets so I tend to make the moves a3/a6, h3/h6 less often than I should. In fact my pawns are nearly always further back than my opponents. When I play a computer I notice they tend to advance pawns with gay abandon. Sometimes the weaknesses that appear allow me to mop them up coming out of the middle game but just as often - perhaps more often - I end up with a lost end game because the computer's pawns will win any race.
My first post here--hi everybody!
This was a 5:00 blitz game and it seems (to me) that I got the advantage once he pushed the pawns in front of his king.
I almost never do this myself, as it usually gets me in trouble, but I've seen plenty of experts do it with success.
Are there general guidelines on when to do this and when not to do it? And what about when to accept/refute it if your opponent does it to you?
My opponent here has a much higher rating, so did he just make a blunder that I don't see (I'm not so great at analyzing games), or what?
And since this situation is pretty common, what all should I be considering in the future when it arises?
Any other thoughts about the game are welcome of course, too.
Thanks!