Investigating the Vukovic gap
Yesterday, I saw two IM's commenting on a game between two grandmasters. It was about the middlegame. Both commenters approached the position with the positional rules they had learned in their youth. And everytime they proposed a variant, the evaluation bar of the chess engine didn't approve. (I wonder how long commenters will show an evaluation bar in the future)
I wanted to investigate the Vukovic gap from two sides, the beginning and the end. The middlegame and the mate. I wanted to examine the middlegame with the aid of the positional rules that I learn from the Woodpecker method 2 positional play . But seeing the two floundering IM's, I realized that matters are not that simple.
Hence I'm trying a different approach. I got an account on DecodeChess (DC). DC gives an explanation of a game with the aid of AI in plain English. I investigated a game between Martin Olesen vs Walter M Buehl (1992) Rating 2305 vs 2037. 1 blunder vs 5. Since I recognized none of the blunders at first sight, I can apparently learn something from the game. From move 12 on, matters went downhill for black. I try to understand what is going on in the Vukovic gap. I will keep you posted.
From Black’s play, it appears that he is unfamiliar with how to play against hanging pawns. He tried a “cheapo” fork with 12… Nb4, and then created the hanging pawns on d4/c4. The general approach is to attack the hanging pawns without loss of tempi so that White (in this case) does not have a free hand to utilize his space advantage to shift his pieces into position for a kingside attack (the preconditions). Envision BBa6, BNa5, BRc7, BQc8—all aimed at the c4-pawn. Nimzowitsch devoted Part II: Chapter 3 in My System to the isolated Queen’s pawn (IQP) and the transition from IQP to the “isolated pawn pair” to hanging pawns and back to the IQP. Another feature of interest is the Horrwitz bishops (b2/b1). These brutes can be devastating in a kingside attack which is enabled by the space advantage of the hanging pawns!
ReplyDeleteAn excellent discussion of the advantages/disadvantages of the hanging pawns, and how to play both with them and against them is found in this video:
LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlbF8j6_0KU
very instructive. Especially since I get hanging pawns all the time.
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