TL Chess Match 3 - Page 5

6. h4 h6
7. Nf3 Nd7 (or e6 or Nf6 maybe or something else? not sure)

Eventually if we can support h5 and force his bishop to h7, bringing our bishop to d3 for the trade seems like a decent plan.

if the purpose of this sequence leads to d3 trade, why not just 6. Bd3 and trade without committing to a pawn push so early on? my point is that the option of kingside castle is poor as a result of h4.

6. h4 commits us to the later h5, which leaves us with an awkwardly advanced pawn on h5, a target in the middle and end games. I prefer to follow my previous line, 6. Nf3 Nd7 7. Bd3 Bxd3 8. Qxd3, getting rid of the light squared bishops without weakening our pawn structure. 6. h4 does nothing but give us a weak h4 pawn. The advanced pawn may look aggressive, but it really does nothing, and will soon be attacked when black plays his knight to f6, tying down the g3 knight to the defense of the pawn.

Never push a pawn without looking at the consequences first. Pawn moves cannot be reversed, unlike piece moves. What results from the pawn push is a bishop trade. And a weak pawn. And a weaker kingside. What results from the above 6. Nf3 line, is a bishop trade, without a weak pawn or a weak kingside.

Black isn't forced to play 7...Bxd3 after 7.Bd3 in your line. The point of the h4 push is to force him to accept the bishop trade. He could play Ngf6 or e6 in preparation of a central knight.

If black declines the bishop trade, white is still ok. We just develop normally.

Even if black plays 7. ... e6 or 7. ... Nf6, white can still develop on normal lines without pushing the h pawn and compromising our pawn structure. We also maintain Bxg6 to mess up black's pawn structure if it benefits us. And a future Bxd3 is fine for us.

7. ... e6
8. Bf4 Nf6
9. 0-0

White is fine. We don't need the bishop trade to complete our development. The Bd3 move can exist merely to challenge black's light squared bishop. We can still play around it and maintain Bxg6 in the event that we want to take that route. The bishop trade on g6 could benefit black if he has not yet castled/has castled queenside. So maybe keeping the bishops on stops black from castling kingside. So we can prepare a queenside pawn storm.

8. ... Qa5+
9. c3

Likewise, Qa5+ doesn't do that much for black. After 9. ... Ngf6 10. Bxg6 hxg6 11. 0-0, we're doing fine against black, who must castle kingside or leave his king in the center.

7. ... Ngf6 basically transposes into the above lines as far as I can see. And we're doing fine, without a compromised pawn structure.

I just wanted to castle queenside one game.

Seriously though, I'm not sure that an advanced h-pawn in this position is as awkward as it seems. Granted, it's not like it would be doing much of anything stuck on h5 anyway. I wouldn't complain with 6. Nf3 at all though if that's what's decided, as it seems like the more practical choice.

Then vote for it! We're being flooded by h4s here. (We can still castle queenside after Nf3 too )

Seriously I dont get why people are feeling the need to justify opening theory so much. Given that we didnt go for a sideline and we're in the Capablanca, it only makes sense to play the best moves.

Now as more of a positional player I dont like the look of h4 (although I never play the caro), even though statistically it might be OK. Nf3 is the logical developing move here which doesnt create any weaknesses.

Did you forget about the Rook on h1? I've never seen the pawn on h5 become a positional liability because White's pieces are all heavily active in the middle of the board in the Caro Kann. The h4 move followed by h5, then supported by g4 provides a solid kingside threat. You're also forgetting how hard that pawn is to attack. It's near impossible to attack with a queen or rook, and Black's Knight is the only real piece that can contribute to the attack. White constantly threatens ripping open the kingside with a pawn push, which is our one major threat in the Caro Kann against Black. I'll stick by h4.

anything else is uncivilized

So Nf3 if we stick to the opening h4 if we want to prepare for the Caro... Honestly I am leaning towards sticking with Nf3 even thou h4 might be our best shot if the game develops how we want.

No, I did not forget the h1 rook. I plan to castle kingside. Even if we were to castle queenside, the rook is not going to want to sit on h1 playing babysitter to the h5 pawn.

My plan is to castle kingside, play the Bishop to d3 in order to challenge black's bishop, and maybe trade on g6, forcing black's king to go queenside or to stay in the center. Then a queenside pawn storm will be good for us.

If we were to play h4/g4, then we'd pretty much be forced to castle queenside. All our pieces will be on the kingside, and black will simply castle queenside to safety and maybe build up a queenside attack. When black castles queenside, h5 looks pretty ridiculous. And will be an endgame vulnerability, even if it can't be assaulted immediately.

For example,

6. h4 h6
7. Nf3 Nd7
8. h5 Bh7
9. Bd3 Bxd3
10. Qxd3 e6
11. Bf4 Qa5+
12. Bd2 Qc7
13. 0-0-0 Ngf6

What does white have here? Not much, imo. Black is poised to castle queenside, where he will be safe. The kingside then can be g4 can support the h6 pawn, but sadly, the f6 knight eyes g4. How does the h1 rook do anything? Its not attacking much from h1, and its only defending the lowly h5 pawn. And once black plays Bd6, he can chop off our g3 knight, leaving the kingside awkward to defend. And leave us with kingside vulnerabilities. The caro is known for giving black a superior pawn structure to white's, especially for an endgame. In the h4 main line that is. We can avoid that by Nf3.

Unless you can provide a better alternative to the line above, Nf3 I think will be clearly better than h4. A few questions people might have is around 11. Bf4, where white may think it could stop Qa5+ by playing the immediate Bd2. This is possible. However the point of Bf4 is control the critical h2-b8 diagonal. Always a key diagonal in most caro games I have played, because usually both the queen and the dark squared bishop want to use it. As in my 6. Nf3 line, the white bishop wants to go to f4 to give black a hard time taking that diagonal. Bd2 would probably transpose into the same lines as Bf4, except with both black and wasting a move. Why not 12. c3 you say? Well, that makes it awkward for queenside castling, when the black queen can stay on a5 and give us trouble. Plus, the a5 square eyes that weak h5 pawn...

So the question for all you h4 people is, do you plan on castling queenside or kingside?

My 2 cents:

Nf3 is fine if you like positional play and end games but h4 applies pressure and will help develop into an eventual king side attack. However, IMO the liability of the h4 is not as great as you think.
Finally, Incongnito isn't the Bf4-Bd2 line you are thinking of redundant (wait just read the comment at the bottom n/m)... Lastly even if it plays out as above (in the line you mention), which it may or may not, we are much better developed and can create threats in the center or on the kingside.

As for your plan of Nf3 into queen side pawn storm... I am not sure that is as easy or as viable as you think...

The pressure applied from h4 is not as great as you think. Where does the h pawn go after h5? It has no targets to attack. What does the h5 pawn stop? It controls g6. But black really has no interest in putting a piece/pawn on g6. So the h4 pawn doesn't really put that much pressure on black.

Could you give an example of how we have better piece development after 6. h4? As far as I can see, we have the same amount of piece development in both the h4 and the Nf3 lines. The h4 push just means both white and black waste a couple moves pushing pawns/moving bishops redundantly. We end up with the same development in the 6. h4 line and the 6. Nf3 lines. Except that in the 6. Nf3 line, we can keep our bishop on f4 instead of retreating it back to d2 after Qa5+. This is because we don't need to castle queenside in the near future, so c3 does just fine. And I would argue that the bishop is better developed on f4 than on d2. Meaning that 6. Nf3 would lead to much better development which we can use to create threats.

Queenside pawn storm may not be as easy as I think, but its certainly easier than a kingside pawn storm. We would have to wait to see where black castles before making a queenside pawn storm, but a kingside pawn storm certainly isnt very viable. Unless we protect the g4 square somehow.

Lets see, kingside attack. Well, we can't really move our knights to f5 or g5, and the h5 square is occupied by our h5 pawn. e5 is also not viable since black will have that critical diagonal I was talking about. So we won't really be able to use knights in our kingside attack. Our dark square bishop would be useless for a kingside attack. f4 g5 and h6 are all guarded by black. The pawn, like I said before, is doing little else but to control the g6 square. Which is useless to white at the moment. The rooks can't really do anything on the kingside besides support a g2-g4 pawn push. The queen has no good squares to penetrate. There are no obvious weaknesses in black's kingside. We have no attack.

I'll go on from my previous line in my last post:

14. Kb1 Bd6
15. Ne4 Nxe4
16. Qxe4 Nf6
17. Qh4 0-0-0

We could move the queen to e2, but it doesn't really do much there. On h4 it at least prepares for g4. Where do we go after here? The immediate g4 doesn't work, because of 18. ... Bf4. The resulting trade leaves black in control of the center, while the kingside attack has gotten nowhere. 18. g3 c5 gets us nowhere either. Black has threats of his own in the center. 18. c4 b6. The kingside attack is dead.

Therefore, the 6. h4 line forces white into a central attack. On move 15, we could try 15. Ne2, trying to avoid trades. Black would probably then simply castle kingside and he's safe. 16. c4 pushing for a central break. 16. ... c5 and black can counter our large center. Black's pieces are already near the center anyway, so we can't really get that far there either.