Sunday, November 16, 2008

No crenellation anymore


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I consider the metaphor of crenels and merlons to be busted.
There are two problems with it. The first thing is that you can't permit to use your pieces to do defensive work only. Like supporting the walls and keep an eye on the holes. If you keep your pieces behind your pawns, you leave the no man's land between the pawns to your enemy pieces. Which gives them the possibility to threat you without any risk. That's not good.
Secondly, when you keep pushing your pawns forward, your position becomes inevitably overstretched, sooner or later.
I'm always happy when I can formulate a verdict.
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I'm experimenting with a new method now. I focus on double purpose moves. I try to find moves that have both an attacking and a defending function. The idea behind it is that when you make a double purpose move while your opponent doesn't, you have effectively gained a tempo. Besides that I'm busy to map out which trades are beneficial and which aren't, in relation to the endgame.
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I will keep you informed.

3 comments:

  1. Good luck with trying to work out what trades are beneficial in an ending, and which aren't. Sometimes it's good to simplify, other times it's not. So much depends on how advanced the pawns are, where the kings are, and what role the various pieces are playing for the respective sides. The general rules we learn about trade pieces when you're ahead don't always apply.

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  2. I think the battlement metaphor is good in some positions. Or rather, for certain squares. It lies behind the (often maligned) notion of overprotection. When you have a bunch of long-range pieces protecting a pawn, pushing that pawn effectively opens up the floodgates, often drastically improving the activity of many pieces in a single step.

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  3. Blue,
    I agree. The last word hasn't been said about it probably.

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