Which move would you make?

 ... Qd7

f4 Bg4 and white is in big trouble.

Ok white plays Qh4. Where's the trouble?

mcmodern wrote:

erik42085 wrote:

For those that want to play Qd7, what's your plan after f4?

 ... Qd7

f4 Bg4 and white is in big trouble.

Pluses for black.

He has more space.

His d and c pawns, along with his centralized minor pieces, give him better center control.

He has the bishop pair.

Minuses for black.

His king is in the middle of the board.

He's slightly behind in development.

His rook aren't connected.

His queen is under attack.

^^^^^^^^^

Pluses for white. 

His opponent's king is in the middle of the board.

He has an active queen.

His dark squared bishop is on an annoying diagonal. 

Minuses for white.

His knight on b1 is a long way from performing a useful function in the game.

His rooks aren't connected.

The pieces he has developed aren't working well together.

^^^^^ 

Based on opening principle, I would make a developing move with the queen in lieu of a second move with an already developed piece. (Plus, I can see no good reason to put the bishop or knight on less active squares.) I like moving the queen to d7 because of the potential to use the white-squared bishop/ queen battery to pressure the white queen off the h5-e8 diagonal.

mcmodern wrote:

KingSoli wrote:

mcmodern wrote: I like Qd7. Of course lookin at it this route if white were to neglect moving his king side pieces he'd be about 2 or 3 moves from losing his queen

 Qd7 the idea of course is bg4 later at some point if white does not react, but if the q moves back for example, black later have the option of f6 g5 and maybe 0-0-0 and h5. the o-o is also a possiblity if black does not want king side pawn storm.  

I thought about this and I'm not the type to shy away from queen side castle but I don't know with whites queen Pawns fast approaching if I'd want to castle in to a no cover pawn march. And I don't think that little pawn duo cubby hole is safe enough but maybe....

But what about this: block the bishop with Ne7,

Then Qd7, then Bg4 followed by Ng6 *snags the queen*

I agree with your explanation, black has positional advantage as pieces are centralized and white's not.

And most of the moves you suggested seem fine to me, not sure what would I actually pick, though.

When we last talked we scratched off the moves Qd7, Qb8, and Be7.

The moves we have kept so far are Qc8 & Qc7.

The moves we have to talk about now are Qa5, Qb6, and Ne7.

The Square a5

Whats so wrong about putting the queen on a5

Well by moving the queen to a5 we support a b5-b4 pawn push thats good.

That is all it does.

Can we find anything wrong with this move?

Actually I have found 2 things wrong with this move I do not like.

The first thing I do not like about this move is by playing Qa5 it limits black on there option of playing the pawn push a5. Since the queen will be on a5.

The second thing and probably the more pressing issue I have is by playing Qa5 I will indirectly put the queen opposite of a white rook.

Later on if I have the idea of playing b5 to b4 white might take the b4 pawn with his a3 pawn opening up the rook file to my queen gaining a tempo.

I would than have to move my queen and white will get a second move.

Which is to say I think the negatives out way the benefits of this move.

I am scratching Qa5 off.

The Square b6

Whats so wrong about putting the queen on b6?

Well by moving the queen to b6 we hit the undefended white b2 pawn.

O MY GOSH we gain a tempo? No actually we don't.

Now the reason I waited to talk about this on a new post is because the explaination of why you are not going to gain a tempo here is so long.

Your eyes are going to glaze over, but by the time I am done you will understand how your not gaining a tempo.

So lets begin!

At the current move white has 5 pieces developed black has 3.

However, It is black to move.

Now if we play the move Qb6 it hits the b2 pawn at which point white will have 5 pieces developed black will have 4.

However, the problem which will happen is white will play the move Bc1.

Now your thinking WHAT? WHY on earth would white play Bc1.

Doesn't that undevelop his bishop? Only slightly because bishops are long range pieces and the square he was at on g5 wasn't really doing much. The white bishop doesn't really want to stay on the h4 to d8 diagnol.

White bishop wants to stay on c1 to h6 to aim on the king side.

Now here is the problem.

Lets pretend black played Qb6 and white answered with Bc1.

Now lets say black castles next developing the king and rook 2 pieces.

Count how many pieces are developed.

white had 5 vs 3

Black moved there queen and castled

thats 1 for queen 1 for the king 1 for the rook

White half way developed because he moved his bishop back to its original square.

so development count is:

White = 4 or 4 1/2

Black = 6

Now look at the below diagram.

We are at the above position after those moves.

Now ask yourself the question if black is ahead in development.

How does black take advantage of being ahead in development?

The answer: The way to exploit a lead in development is to open the position up to expose your opponents under developed pieces. The way to open the position up is to do pawn breaks/exchanges.

Now black has the bishop pair he wants to open the position.

Everything black has is begging him to open up the position.

But the problem is black needs the pawns to do it.

He needs pawns to cause tension than he needs to exchange them all.

Now look at the above diagram I showed you.

In that above diagram black only has 2 pawn moves which cause tension.

The d4 pawn push which causes tension vs the white c3 pawn

and

The c4 pawn push which causes tension vs the d3 pawn.

Now think about it as if your white in this position.

You have 2 knights and your underdeveloped.

Everything in the white position is saying lock me baby!!!

What on earth are you going to do when black pushes his d pawn or c pawn?

Are you going to let him take your pawns?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA  NO!

Look at that we are learning chess.

When black plays d4 you will play c4 and the position is "LOCKED"

When black plays c4 you will play d4 and the position is "LOCKED"

Now think about it!!

When black plays one of these moves and white responses locking the position down.

What does that mean?

It means black still has to find a way to open the position.

The only way black will be able to open the position up than will be to use his b7 pawn.

However, there is a problem we have the queen on b6!!

Holy Smokes!!!

The b7 pawn can't jump over the queen on b6. Which means we will have to move the queen off of b6.

When we do white will develop a piece again.

Thus, we are not gaining a tempo, because the queen will have to move again.

Isn't that amazing.

So because of these reasons I don't like Qb6.

We have found another culprit lady's and gentlmen!

We don't want to move our queen 100 times.

So I am scratching off the move Qb6.

Now the last move I have not talked about is the move Ne7.

I actually do like Ne7.

So far I have liked 3 moves in total Qc8, Qc7, and Ne7.

Since we haven't talked about Ne7 lets go over it.

The reason I like Ne7 is because I like the idea of keeping our queen options open.

You see the move Ne7 protects the queen and still gives us a chance to figure out where our queen belongs.

As an example you can see I like the queen move c8 or c7 but I don't know which one would be better at the moment.

If I can delay my decision on that for as long as possible I will.

Furthermore, by playing Ne7 we give ourselves some interesting idea's.

Maybe in the future we can play h6 and see where the bishop goes.

Obviously the bishop should stay on the c1 diangol but if he goes to h4 and trys to maintain the pin.

Than the move Qb6 which we ruled out before is now actually a very attractive move because white no longer as the Bc1 resource.

Alternatively white might take our knight with his bishop.

At which point we would have 2 bishops vs 2 knights.

Than we can bombard the queen side with all our pawns.

If you remember in my other post I told you the b4 square by white was getting attacked twice by 2 different pawns.

Hopefully you saw that message there.

Which means if black could get a pawn to b4 it would force pawn exchanges because white could only push 1 pawn passed yet black will have the option to attack 2 pawns.

At the present moment black has some queen moves which are not that attractive.

However, we don't know what white is going to do in the future.

Black also doesn't know what white will do with dark square bishop.

By playing Ne7 we give white the chance to go wrong.

Hopefully if you haven't guess already the side of the board white should be playing on is the king side.

The side of the board black should be playing on is the queen side.

The move Ne7 add's some protection to our king.

Since we have the option of Ng6

An there is an old saying in chess which says " If there is a knight on f8 there is no mate."

If you play Ng6 you have the option of Nf8.

Since white is attacking on the king side thats a pretty sweet resource.

This is a saying alot of GM's have said so you know its true.

An the reason this is true is because when a knight is on f8 it protects the h8 square and it can go to g6 to protect any frontal assault.

An once your knight is there you can just throw up the black queen side pawns exchanging everything.

You can tell your opponent good luck.

It would be very hard for white to win with your knight on f8 and your amazing plan.

I think white is lost in this position.

Black has a crystal clear plan of just opening the position and crushing white.

b5-a5-b4 take a white pawn

Put a rook on b8 invade to the 6th rank were all the pawns are.

Tie down white to complete passive defense.

Keep mounting pressuring.

White can't stop this plan.

The only salvation white has is in doing a king side attack with his F pawn and let me tell you something.

If I was to gamble in this position I would get my knight to g6 than f8 and focus on the queen side.

I wouldn't even care what white played on the kingside after that.

I would tell him good luck.

@Linc95 in response to post #31

After you wrote your post I looked at the position for the first time with my engine.

I reviewed it to check to see if the moves I liked were reasonable lines.

Also to see if I missed anything.

The moves I like were the below 3 moves:

I have liked 3 moves in total Qc8, Qc7, and Ne7

My engine evaluated the position as:

Qd7 = 1st choice

Qb6 = 2nd choice

Qc7 = 3rd choice

Qc8 = 4th choice

My engine did not even show Ne7 as a recommendation.

I do not know what moves you had on your engine.

You said you had your engine analysis this position for 8 hours.

After hearing your engines testimony and my engines testimony

I must honestly say I disagree with the engines assessment of this position at this time.

Furthermore, I encourage you to investigate these lines further.

I would touch on these issues but to be frank I am a little upset.

The moves I liked were ranked 3rd or 4 and one wasn't even mentioned.

Than to top it off I look at the continuation the computer wants to play and I find it absolutely ridiculous.

I will not share all my analysis because I am upset.

However, I want you to look up something for me with your engine.

I want you to play the move Qb6 in this position.

After you play the move Qb6 let your engine evluation the position.

Don't play any other move.

See if the move Bc1 even pops up on its screen.

My engine did not even see the move Bc1 in that position.

It was playing a bunch of different moves and the move Bc1 never even crossed its little mind.

I eventually gave up on waiting for it to see the move Bc1 in the position.

The computer evaluted the move Bc1 has -0.90 in favor of black.

It evaluated other moves as well with evaluations such as -0.80 but it never saw Bc1.

After I manually played this move. I looked at what the computers continuation was showing next.

The computer suggested the moves 0-0 and f4 which is the below line.

In fact I have shown a diagram of this line if I am not mistake before.

Now in this position guess what blacks best moves are.

Thats right black should play g6 than f5.

How on earth do you expect to find this moves in a game.

Unless you see this position hundreds of times you are not going to find these moves.

This is computer rubbish that is going to get you crushed.

If you plan to play these computer top recommended lines you better memorize all of those moves.

The moves white played here are logical.

I found whites moves with out a computer.

Only using human logic!

Yet, black is going to entomb his bishop and throw up his king side pawns in this position as a defense.

These computer recommended suggestions are going against what most humans are taught.

People are taught!

Don't move your pawns in front of your king thats it is your kings cover!

Don't block in your bishop behind your pawns!

Think of a computer engine like a human getting fed answers from Grand Masters through out history.

In history there were very strong Defensive/Positional Grand Masters.

The computer is sensing there danger.

It see's 4 white pieces (Queen, Rook, Knight, Bishop) + 1 pawn hovering over the black king.

Which is why it is taking immediate action here.

Bottom line

Look over those lines carefully.

See if you can find the moves the computer is suggesting.

If you can't find the engines moves or if you can't understand the engine moves.

No point in playing that continuation.

Since it will simply cause you problems in a real game.

Yes but look at the 15.f4 f6 line as well.

The computer is playing the same idea's in the 15.f4 f6 continuation as well.

It senses danger so it is playing those moves regardless.

It is playing those g and f pawn moves regardless because that is the defense resource you have to hold this position.

The only black pieces which are helping defend the black king are the bishop on e6 and rook on f8.

From the D file to the A file the black pieces are not contributing.

White has 1 knight + 1 queen + 1 bishop on c1 which is long range piece + 1 rook on f1 + 1 pawn.

Whether you play 15.g6 than f5.

or

15.f6 than g6 the question remains the same.

Are you going to find those pawn moves in a real game.

Also the line which is recommended as top engine choice.

Qd7

I was upset yesterday but I looked at it as well.

It is highly tactical.

Furthermore, In a few of those continuations after Bg4 it seems as if the bishop on g4 is getting trapped.

However, black has to find resources to untrap the bishop.

The position gets tactical and you end up getting forced to play king side pawn moves again in that position as well.

I would hit the resign button. LOL