I just played a game against a player who moved every single pawn out before developing their king side pieces. I've heard that this is a really bad idea, but I'm not sure how I am suppose to "punish" this. He was white and he moved his pawns to a4, b3, c4, d3, e4, f3, g4, and h3. I know my dark square bishop should be valuable in this situation, but I wasn't sure what to do. Any suggestions how to combat this?
could you link to the game?
You couldve played Bc5 before commiting to d6.When a player tries to play questionably in the opening.At the worst,make sure your pieces are good,at the best,you get a crushing attack.White didnt have too many weaknesses,so you could have just made sure that you had no downsides to your position.The attack will naturally come if he kept playing inferior moves
To be honest, I think you simply lack strength to "punish" stupid openings. There are no secret tricks and stuff, you just have to be good enough to find good moves. How do you have 1400 attempted puzzles and such low puzzle rating? Puzzles are a good way to improve in tactics, but you gotta take them seriously. Don't just make random moves quickly, look at the position until you see the solution even if it takes 30 minutes. If after 30 minutes you still don't see it, leave it and try again later.
But excuse my rambling, that's just a suggestion.
Specifically in this game, when your opponent puts his pawns stupidly like that, try to put pieces into those holes. Any piece in his territory that he can't kick with a pawn is a positional advantage. By pushing e4 c4 and e4 he created holes on d4 and b4. You should put your pieces there to put pressure and stop further pawn pushes. You instinctively put your knight on d4, 6th move, it makes sense (tactical blunder aside, nobody saw it), but he just exchanged it and left you with a pretty useless pawn there. You should have finished your development first and then tried to put it there in a way that he can't exchange it first, like taking the knight first with the bishop or just putting the knight on b4. You obviously shouldn't have trapped your bishop inside the pawn chain. Also, whenever the position is blocked, someone has to break the pawn blockade to gain advantage. It would have probably been a good idea to arrange f5, (or h5 after he played g4). Actually, computer suggests 4. ...f5. I somehow have to agree, if I played 3. ...d3, the only reason would be to play 4. ...f5, I see no other sense in that move. c5 was also terrible, creating further weaknesses and doing nothing (stopping b4? a5 was much better). c6 was needed to defend both d5 and b5 eventually.
Ok, so the key points:
- Your pieces were developed faster, but developed badly.
- Don't pointlessly exchange when you're ahead in development.
- Finish development before moving the same pieces again
- Break the position when you're ahead in development.
- When you can't think of any plan, try at least to improve your pieces.
- It usually isn't a good idea to put all pawns on same coloured squares, it leaves weaknesses on the other colour squares.
- In essence, your opponent overrun you with his pawns because your pieces weren't well placed to exploit all the weaknesses he created.
But excuse my rambling, that's just a suggestion.
Specifically in this game, when your opponent puts his pawns stupidly like that, try to put pieces into those holes. Any piece in his territory that he can't kick with a pawn is a positional advantage. By pushing e4 c4 and e4 he created holes on d4 and b4. You should put your pieces there to put pressure and stop further pawn pushes. You instinctively put your knight on d4, 6th move, it makes sense (tactical blunder aside, nobody saw it), but he just exchanged it and left you with a pretty useless pawn there. You should have finished your development first and then tried to put it there in a way that he can't exchange it first, like taking the knight first with the bishop or just putting the knight on b4. You obviously shouldn't have trapped your bishop inside the pawn chain. Also, whenever the position is blocked, someone has to break the pawn blockade to gain advantage. It would have probably been a good idea to arrange f5, (or h5 after he played g4). Actually, computer suggests 4. ...f5. I somehow have to agree, if I played 3. ...d3, the only reason would be to play 4. ...f5, I see no other sense in that move. c5 was also terrible, creating further weaknesses and doing nothing (stopping b4? a5 was much better). c6 was needed to defend both d5 and b5 eventually.
Ok, so the key points:
- Your pieces were developed faster, but developed badly.
- Don't pointlessly exchange when you're ahead in development.
- Finish development before moving the same pieces again
- Break the position when you're ahead in development.
- When you can't think of any plan, try at least to improve your pieces.
- It usually isn't a good idea to put all pawns on same coloured squares, it leaves weaknesses on the other colour squares.
- In essence, your opponent overrun you with his pawns because your pieces weren't well placed to exploit all the weaknesses he created.
Your opponent didnt play bad, nd4 on your part was bad.
Your opponent played 2 Nf3 and 5 Be2. Apart from that his first few moves were e4, d3 and c4. There's really not anything so terrible about any of that, though it's an unusual setup. So if you were thinking you had to be able to punish that right away, that led you astray.
You're right that he weakened his kingside dark squares later on, and in general you'd want to look for a way to attack on those squares, trying to get pieces into h4, f4, g3 etc. However in this particular position you'd have had some problems trying to do that because you didn't have a pawn on e5 any more. That meant not only that you didn't have it to support a black piece that came to f4, it wasn't so easy to stop white playing f4 himself, and later f5, giving him a pretty nasty attack.
Judging by this game, you're not at a level yet where you should be thinking too much about things like dark square weaknesses and the number of pawn moves by your opponent. It's more important to spend time making sure all the basic tactics work out, making sure you look at the different ways your opponent could answer your next move etc.
You're right that he weakened his kingside dark squares later on, and in general you'd want to look for a way to attack on those squares, trying to get pieces into h4, f4, g3 etc. However in this particular position you'd have had some problems trying to do that because you didn't have a pawn on e5 any more. That meant not only that you didn't have it to support a black piece that came to f4, it wasn't so easy to stop white playing f4 himself, and later f5, giving him a pretty nasty attack.
Judging by this game, you're not at a level yet where you should be thinking too much about things like dark square weaknesses and the number of pawn moves by your opponent. It's more important to spend time making sure all the basic tactics work out, making sure you look at the different ways your opponent could answer your next move etc.
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