Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Pouring boiling oil



















My invention of the ideal game, in which gain of wood and mate played no role, has proven to work counter productive. So I must try another way to get rid of the disturbance caused by thinking about gaining wood, mate and other distracting bric-a-brac. Dear reader, please ignore them, for the moment. Let's focus on simple things. Later is early enough to add complexity.

The role of the pawns seems to be a moving wall. The pawns are the merlons, the pieces are standing behind them with kettles of boiling oil to prevent the enemy from penetrating through the crenels. Alekhine's guns are shooting a breach in the enemy wall. Then all of a sudden you blow your horns and flow out of the gates in order to storm the barricades. Once you entered trough the breach you try to obtain a bridgehead from where you can attack the enemy from inside.

But are there openings where you keep your pieces behind your pawns? Is there any game theorist who adviced this? Did anyone advice to move the pawnwall forward in front of your pieces? Is the metaphor above a reasonable line of play?

5 comments:

  1. "But are there openings where you keep your pieces behind your pawns?"

    Sure. You're using one of them as your main weapon as White and as Black against the closed games. Also, most flank openings (like the English), and the Sicilian for Black--the only thing you're likely to put in front of a Pawn is the King's Knight.

    "Is there any game theorist who adviced this? Did anyone advice to move the pawnwall forward in front of your pieces?"

    Philidor, to start with, and pretty much in so many words. Many others (Staunton, Steinitz, Chigorin, the Hypermoderns...) mostly by implication than direct statement.

    "Is the metaphore above a reasonable line of play?"

    As long as you recognize than sometimes your officers have to sortie out.

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  2. I love the metaphor! Very vivid.

    I think analyzing it too closely will reveal weaknesses like you said, but it is still a good metaphor, especially for attacks against the King. The role of the pawns in the story is so complicated and subtle that I'm not sure what will remain on that angle, but frankly I know very little about pawn play in chess outside of the endgame. And even there I'm a patzer when it isn't the simple techniques.

    Incidentally, has anyone reading read Aasgaard's Attacking Manual? How is it?

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  3. Ed,
    the "Polabia" (Polar Bear) was in fact the main inspiration for this post. But until now I didn't use the metaphor to guide my play. Now I'm supported by Philidor I will give it a try.

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  4. Blue,
    I got the impression - but it is not more than that - that the more positional players like Karpov and Seirawan tend to push their pawns more than others. But maybe it is just accidental that I studied such games of them.

    It seems that overstretching and king safety are the main concerns to hold you back from deploying your pawns.

    After all your pieces have died in the battle it is finally the king who walks thru the remains of the walls into enemy territory to deliver the coup de grace.

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  5. tempo, I am curious as to your thoughts on my comment to this post. What part of this endgame do you think would be stored in procedural vs "normal" memory?

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