Ceteris paribus

 I'm trying to get the positional scenarios clear which reside between the opening and the assault of the king.

In the previous post, those scenarios were evident for the players. I noticed the same with the game between Anand and Shirov which I posted on June 16th. One player was trying to flick in a quick assault, while the other was gathering some long term advantages and bided his time.

These scenarios are well known at grandmaster level, and they have no tendency to talk about these scenarios very much. The problem for them lies in the valuation of the scenarios, not in the invention of them. They are more interested in the variations, the remedy, instead of the diagnosis..

As you might have noticed, I try to stay clear of the variations, since my goal is to get the hang of the diagnosis, not the remedy. It is too early for me to worry about remedies.

So far, the investigation of the positional scenarios is going well. The assault itself is pretty clear now, it is now the matter to study concrete positions. The LoA mechanism provides the right framework to hang the feedback on.

But between the opening and the conquest of the center, and between owning the center and starting the assault, there are still a lot of elements that are not quite clear to me yet. In general it is not rocket science, it is just a matter of digging in.

In the previous post, it was clear that gaining tempi due to kicking pieces and pawns was central to the execution of the positional plan. I realized I know actually very little about this tool.

When there are no clear weaknesses in the position, then kicking around pieces and pawns seems to be the weapon of choice. Ceteris paribus.

What does this mean:

• Look which pieces of your opponent are "kickable" and place your own pieces accordingly
• Place your own pieces where they cannot be kicked that easy
• Nimzowitsch said somewhere that one reason to place your pieces in the center, is that they force your opponent to trade them, thus opening lines for you

I'm going to have a look at this.