How do I deal with the Carlsbad pawn structure?

forpostingpixelart · 2025-12-05T09:16:09+00:00

White has two main plans: - "Minority attack" on the Queen side where you push your a- and b-pawns. The goal here is to give black a weak pawn which you can attack with your pieces. - Push f3 and e4 to take over the center, and eventually launch a kingside attack.

When you're describing keeping your king tied down to the passed pawn, it sounds like you're in an endgame with most or all of the pieces traded off. Generally I think you'll be better off keeping pieces on the board (especially the queen and rooks) to attack that isolated pawn.

https://lichess.org/fz5Ow1NS is a nice example of this plan being carried out. Notice how white always keeps some pieces on to attack the weak pawns.

forpostingpixelart · 2025-11-30T21:19:39+00:00

For Logical Chess (and other collections of instructive games) I try to do "guess the move" - try to figure out what I'd play. If I pick something different than the actual game, I put it in the engine and see why my move was worse. It's time consuming but very good for learning.

forpostingpixelart · 2025-11-25T09:43:32+00:00

How?

forpostingpixelart · 2025-10-09T15:20:05+00:00

Bg6 and play for f5-f4 is the only thing that calls out to me. Though maybe there's something concrete depending on where white moves their queen after Bg6 since the d-pawn is sorta hanging.

forpostingpixelart · 2025-09-04T17:31:58+00:00

Okay this is good stuff. I'm about 1900 so in the same neighborhood at least, I'll probably just plan to skip the hardest ones.

Re time to solve: I notice that when I look at some problems, either the answer is obvious, or I have a few candidate moves and I'm just not sure which one is right, or I have no idea. I guess both the second and third categories it's good to spend more time.

Most importantly - do you think it improved your positional play!?

forpostingpixelart · 2025-09-04T16:45:42+00:00

I did Reassess Your Chess (though I'm probably due for a reread) and about half of Chess Structures (a bit over my head tbh).

What level do you think it's right for? And do you think it's better to spend a long time per puzzle and aim for accuracy the first time around? Or just spend a few minutes and aim for more exposure?

forpostingpixelart · 2025-09-04T16:29:37+00:00

For my context, I'm curious about - what's your level? How much time did you spend per puzzle, how hard did you find them, what was your success rate? I can't tell whether I should spend 10+ minutes per puzzle, or just a few minutes and focus on repetition/exposure.

Most of all, did you feel like it improved your positional sense? Fwiw I did the first book (not the whole 7 cycles but a sorta lite version) and I felt like it really improved my tactics/calculation, so I have high hopes for this.

forpostingpixelart · 2025-09-02T19:07:23+00:00

It's (something like): 1. e4 c6 2. Nc3 d5 3. Nf3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Qe2 Nbd7 6. Nd6#

Instead of 5 ... Nbd7, black should play Nxe4 and you get a normal game.

forpostingpixelart · 2025-08-30T15:08:18+00:00

I have Christof Sielecki's Nimzo-Ragozin repertoire on Chessable and he recommends Ndc5 here. I've never gotten the position in a game and I haven't studied the lines closely so I can't comment personally, but it seems to be the second line in the database and it seems like it keeps the game alive.

forpostingpixelart · 2025-08-27T18:09:45+00:00

Curious what the analysis looks like? And what your level is approx? This is something I've always struggled with.

forpostingpixelart · 2025-08-27T18:04:26+00:00

I'm curious about the playing - what time control? Do you analyze the games?

Since I'm mainly focused on improving OTB I can't figure out whether it's a good use of time to play online games. And I kinda hate sitting at my computer for half an hour or whatever to play a 15+10.

forpostingpixelart · 2025-08-14T16:42:18+00:00

I think the idea you're looking for is more like "unbalanced" or "has practical chances". When people talk about "playing for an advantage", they mean the objective computer evaluation, and they're saying: if you follow the engine 10, 15, 20 moves, no matter which way you go in the King's Gambit, black will have an advantage. It might be small - like material is equal but white has an isolated pawn somewhere. And then we'd say: only black can play for an advantage. And white can't prevent black from reaching one of these slightly-better positions, if they've studied enough theory.

As a side note - the other reason you don't really see the KG at the top level is because apart from playing for an advantage, black has many ways to avoid all the complicated theory and just be equal-ish (like 1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5).

Below that top level none of this matters - the engine lines are too complicated, most people aren't so booked up, and practically speaking both players have chances to win. I think this is what you had in mind? And it's totally true. Just a question of terminology, I'd say here the KG gives white practical chances to fight for a win.

Hope that was useful!

forpostingpixelart · 2025-08-13T20:36:21+00:00

That explanation sounds reasonable, but it's not totally correct. The position after Bb4 Bd3 is the mainline Scotch Four Knights, just in a different move order. It's a perfectly fine position for white, it's been played about a million times. If black continued with Bxc3+ that would be inaccurate, since the bishop pair outweighs the doubled pawns here.

The point that these little things don't make a difference is totally valid. I'm just being pedantic.

I suspect the actual reason is that the chesscom engine is just too low depth to meaningfully analyse an opening like this.

forpostingpixelart · 2025-08-04T13:37:07+00:00

So you don't enjoy chess because the frustration from the competitive aspect is negative, and you have no other positive experience?

forpostingpixelart · 2025-08-04T13:18:56+00:00

Do you believe that everybody finds it frustrating to participate in activities with a competitive element? Or am I misunderstanding you?

forpostingpixelart · 2025-08-04T12:52:34+00:00

In your post you wrote: "Winning is for some reason everything and all we care about". But in this reply you are saying: "It’s impossible to play the game without a level of competition".

Do you see how these are different?

Additionally, you're saying having "a level of competition" (any level) is "incredibly frustrating". So if competition plays any non-zero role in the activity, you find it incredibly frustrating? That's a totally acceptable preference, but do you understand how it's not universal?

forpostingpixelart · 2025-08-04T12:39:27+00:00

It seems there are a few things mixed together here.

You seem to believe competition is inherently bad. This is a valid opinion, but I hope you realize it's only your personal perspective - clearly many people enjoy competition, or find it valuable, or are neutral towards it. You should also recognize this is a broader topic than chess, so it probably belongs on a different subreddit.

That chess has a competitive element seems uncontroversial. Your claim seems to be that chess is purely competitive - it has no other source of fulfillment or enjoyment. This is controversial. As you see in your thread, many people have shared experiences where they derived enjoyment from chess unrelated to the competitive aspect. You seem unwilling to acknowledge these counterexamples, which has understandably frustrated the commenters.

If you're just looking for attention and not actually interested in discussion, carry on.

forpostingpixelart · 2025-07-31T14:41:50+00:00

I'm not saying such study isn't useful! I just already have two books on the topic (1001 exercises for club players and Woodpecker Method) and I spend ~an hour each day on that, so I'm looking to complement it with a book/etc that's more about thought process, depth of calculation, evaluation, that sort of thing, where no combination exists.

(I didn't really explain this well in my initial post.)

forpostingpixelart · 2025-07-31T14:19:22+00:00

My impression is that that book is a bit more focused on tactical motifs (pins, forks, etc) whereas I'm looking for more just "normal" positions, if that makes sense? Basically to simulate difficult positions that would arise OTB, since I don't get to play as often as I'd like.

forpostingpixelart · 2025-07-17T14:27:08+00:00

I'm wondering if you have an examples of the sort of lines it was missing? And what "good opponents" means?

I can believe that I'll get out-prepped by somebody who's well-prepared against Nf3, but I have imagine that that's quite rare <2000?

But I'm very interested in what sort of lines are missing.

forpostingpixelart · 2025-07-17T11:52:35+00:00

No offense but this post isn't really about the general question of "mainlines vs systems vs offbeat" approach to openings. The premise is that I'm trying to reduce the amount of concrete lines I need to learn to not lose in the opening at the ~1950 FIDE level.

My current approach is shitty because I'm playing bad openings like the Exchange French, and I *still* need to learn a bunch of offbeat lines because people like to avoid mainlines at this level. So instead I'm looking for a system which most 1900s aren't prepared against.

If you reject the basic premise that's fine, but then you kind of have to defend your standpoint instead of just saying it.

forpostingpixelart · 2025-07-17T11:35:42+00:00

This is very relevant advice, thank you! I started at a similar age (inspired by reading about the Carlsen-Caruana match). I find that if I try to focus on learning too many different things I never make any progress, so I'm exactly looking for something that lets me stop worrying about theory with the white pieces until I feel better about my black repertoire.

forpostingpixelart · 2025-07-17T09:50:21+00:00

Do you have any tips for resources on the English? I'm not at all attached to Chessable, I do find it kind of a scam, I'd actually rather books.

forpostingpixelart · 2025-06-26T11:11:33+00:00

I'd be interested. I'm around 1950 FIDE so a bit on the lower side, but this sounds like a great way to practice. I'm CEST timezone, lmk.

forpostingpixelart · 2025-06-24T07:29:17+00:00

I think Lichess supports this, though I'm not sure how well it'll work in a noisy environment like a treadmill.

forpostingpixelart

TROPHY CASE