TL Chess Match 3 - Page 6

Obviously if I plan to go h4 I won't castle kingside that's just silly. My plan is to cramp the black kingside with pawns. H5 contributes to this strategy by binding black's kinside pawns. If we could get a pan on e5 with a knight exchange on e5, all the better. If there's one weakness that I have seen in the Caro Kann when played at the professional level, it's that black is never able to comfortably castle in either direction if h4 is played. Either white gets a relatively safe king or black has a threat against his king.

Anyway, the only time that I feel h4 becomes a liability is when black is able to get his king QUEEN (lol) into the center, which if white plays correctly, he can prevent to some degree.

I don't like h4 immediately because the pawn attack is easily avoidable with h6/f6 and that bishop's in a pretty trapped spot as it is.

I've seen plenty of games when 0-0-0 has been fine for black. Usually when white also castles queenside. I've seen less 0-0 by black, but it is definitely playable. White can't get past black's solid kingside pawn structure without some sort of piece sacrifice. The pawns may cramp black on the kingside, but black really wants to play on the queenside or in the center. The advanced pawns shouldn't scare black unless white is confident with a piece sacrifice.

Black is perfectly capable of castling either way in the Caro. I've seen it many times. I've also seen black win when he doesn't castle. I don't see any evidence that points to h4 hindering black from castling. I also don't see any reason why black is forced to castle, Caro Kann games are semi-closed, so the king is actually quite safe in the center.

The other time when h4 becomes a liability is in the endgame. Which is what the caro-kann is all about. And I don't think white can really stop getting into an endgame unless he is really sharp or black makes a blunder. Which, sadly, I think is not the case in this game.

Recently though, I saw games played where h5 never became a liability. It actually become the star of the show so to speak. It gives White a clear space advantage on the king side, and it also divides Black's attention between the king side and queen side. I'm specifically looking at games played in Gibraltar this year, which have most certainly shown the viability of h4 and the Classical variation of the Caro Kann.

Could I have some links to some of these games? I'm curious.

You'll find a lot of them for free on chessgames.com. Here are some, both wins and losses. I didn't find any recent Nf3 games, but there's probably some in there that I didn't catch.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?page=76&eco=B18

There are a lot of Caro Kann classical games. The ones played at Gibraltar are mostly h4 variations. The ones played earlier are mostly Nf3s. I think both are playable, it's just the modern style prefers h4.

mdb Inc isn't bashing anyone he is just saying why he thinks h4 is not as good a s Nf3. You kind of have to do what he's doing if you are tying to convince people to play your move.

I played out Inc's lines and they look pretty good.

Malathion could you please explain yourself a little bit more, this goes for everyone else that is not voting for h4 based on preference but that actually believe Nf3 is inferior. Some of us are not so good at chess and maybe getting more arguments for the move would help us.

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Why is h4 so much better versus Caro? :S

and just for the record the fact that you suggested h4 (the classical mainline) scares me. Makes me feel that you have some serious tricks up your sleeve.