Attacking a Castled Position

The next game that I have chosen to look at took place in June 2012. It is similar to my previous article about the fishing pole trap in that it was a very short game, and in that I was able once again to successfully attack and check mate my opponent after he had decided to castle. This time I was playing with the black pieces and my opponent was playing white, and to be honest, I think I only won so quickly because he made one or two blunders. Also on this occasion, there was no particular opening strategy or trap being employed, but I think I managed to concentrate a little bit more than my opponent and to capitalize on his mistakes.

White opens by moving his king pawn forward two squares, (pawn to e5), which is the most common opening move played, and I counter with the equally common pawn to e6. White then brings out his bishop to c4, which looks a little bit to me like the ‘Italien game’, (another opening that I hope to discuss at a later date), and which opens up a line of attack onto my weakest square which is f7.

Depending upon how much chess theory you know, you may or may not realise that in the opening part or any game of chess,  f7 is the weakest square for black and likewise f2 is the weakest square for white which is due to the fact that only the king can defend this square. This can cause big problems if the king is attacked from this square as in order to defend he must sometimes take the attacking piece himself, meaning that the option to castle is lost and meaning also that the king is being drawn away from the safety of the back rank early on in the game. In any case a variety of problems can be caused in various ways by a player who decides to attack this square, and so with this in mind I decided to move my queen out early (something they say you shouldn’t do), both to place another defender onto the f2 square, but also to give myself a little bit of a counter attacking option with my queen onto black’s king side.

Move three sees white bring out  his knight to f3, a general developing move which strengthens his position in the centre of the board, whilst my move three brings out my bishop to c5, which opens up a diagonal attack on white’s f2 square in the same way that he is attacking my f7. For move four, white brings his other knight into play, and my move four sees me breaking another of the opening guide lines by placing my knight on the edge of the board (knight on the rim spells dim), is the maxim. My reason for making this move however is because I want to build up an attack on the white kingside, and possibly combine my bishop and knight on his f2 square with the possibility of making a “fried liver attack”, (part of the Italien game, but more about this on another occassion), and I have already placed my queen on the square my knight would normally move on to.

Move five sees white move his queen side knight again, this time to d5 which is not a bad move really because it estabilshes an attacking outpost for him and forces me to move my Queen which is placed under threat. Rather than retreat completely, I  move my queen across the board to d6, but at this stage I would say white still seems to be in quite a strong position as he develops his pieces in the centre and attacks with his forward thrusting knight. For move six he decides to castle however, and I take advantage of this passive defensive move by continuing to bring my knight forward, this time to the g4 square from where it poses a direct and obvious threat to white’s castled position by threatening squares f2 and h2.

I think the next move is where white really begins to go wrong.  He moves his pawn to d4, which is maybe an attempt to block the line of my bishop onto his f2 square, but by taking his d pawn with my e pawn, I succeed in unblocking the diagonal line of attack by my queen onto white’s h2 square which is also under threat from my knight. At this stage, the situation is still not terminal for him however, because h2 is still defended by his knight on f3, meaning that I could not attack the square without forefeithting my knight and queen. For some reason however, white’s attention seem to be focussed on what is happening at the centre of the board and maybe with the threat to f2, and he makes his last fatal error by moving his f3 knight to take my pawn. It only remains for me to strike the killer blow and the game is over.

Presumably, white was imagining that the game would continue with my bishop taking his knight, which would then enable him to take with his queen, and in so doing, bring it to the centre of play where it would be able to excert a lot of control over the game. He seemed to be totally unaware however of the threat posed by my knight and queen and the need to defend his castled position.  From my point of view however, this game serves to illustrate, how useful knights can sometimes be when used as attacking pieces to harry the enemy lines, and how bringing the queen into play early on in the game to add some extra thrust to the attack need not necessarily be a mistake.