How could you have trouble winning in this position? White's up a pawn, dominates the center, and black is completely undeveloped. Simply Rab1, c4, (kick the knight) and then you can either A) trade off everything and win the endgame or B) kill the black king. Either one works...
White's plan in this position?
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because I blow it up trying to checkmate black
Vivinski wrote:
Maybe an idea would be g3, king g2 rook h1
That´s way too slow, and gives Black time to get organized. Your Q is blocked in away from the action, and with Rh1 you´d be blocking it in as well. I think better would be to plan Ra1-e1-e4, ready to swing it over to the g or h file. You´ve got a good position, but the problem is getting the heavy pieces into action before Black can get defenders over to the K side. The pawn on e5 is doing a great job and is a big plus. You´ve got to get your Queen unblocked and over to the K side. Maybe something like this:
I'm not sure what mistakes you might make, but one thing I see some players do is treat it like a tactic puzzle and immediately sacrifice... that's only half right :) You should treat it somewhat like a tactics puzzle, but only in the sense that you're looking for concrete threats. (Hopefully in tactics puzzles you don't sacrifice without calculating at least one winning line too!)
Another good point which clunney mentioned is that some attacks don't end in mate (or don't need to end in mate). If you pick up a pawn or two and shatter their coordination or pawn structure then it's a pretty easy win in the endgame, there's no need to keep attacking for mate at that point (see variation on move 9).
Here's an attack that I hope illustrates some key ideas for you. Ideas like bringing more attackers, exchanging off his defenders, provoking a pawn to move and then using the squares that were weakened, all of these things are common attacking ideas used in nearly every attack.
Also some basic ones like rook to the 3rd rank and moves having threats (threats shown in the variations).
Setting up an attack (as above) is often very positional in nature. White provoked some weaknesses, then maneuvered to ideal squares before continuing. But it's also very tactical. If at any point black had made a passing move (representing what would be in any other attack some inaccurate move) white has to also see many tactics (shows in the variations).
While this may seem overwhelming, the ideas are fairly simple. Bring more attackers, exchange off defenders, create threats, open lines, and calculate forcing moves. The threats and calculating are probably the hardest part for novice attacker. Solving mate puzzles and trying to guess the moves of attacking players helps introduce themes and improve calculation.
Here's another way to bring more attackers (a common rook lift using the e file).
What should white's plan be in this position? Imo the only thing to do is somehow attack the black king but how.
I somehow blow up these kind of positions, black king looks weak he's missing a pawn in front of him, there are not a lot of pieces protecting it, white's pawn chain is facing towards the king side, everything is screaming ATTACK THE BLACK KING!! and still I somehow blow these positions.
Maybe an idea would be g3, king g2 rook h1