Finding The Right Place For Your Pieces

I chose to write this blog for a couple of reasons, I believe this blog could introduce people to the positional aspect of the game very simply and instructively. The other reason was that to find some good games for this blog, I had to go through around 20–30 games. Which also helps me improve my chess.

Introduction

I would like to start by showing you a game I played, because the application of positional principles in this particular position are easy to understand, but also instructive.

In this position, I have already managed to exchange white's lights square bishop. So, his king is relatively weak, as if I can manage to exploit the holes on f3 and h3, it will be troublesome for him. I want you guys to look at the position below and give it 2–3 minutes to find the best move.

The plan is simple, if you can get more pieces to attack the white king, there is no way he is able to defend. Though it may see that I also have a problem as saving the d-pawn is will be a difficult task, but the truth is I can easily defend that pawn with tactical elements. Now, here a person would notice Qe2! as a good move by calculation too, as it is a forcing move, But the advantage for a positional player is that he is able to narrow down his list of candidates to move, and then focus his energy on them. That way he conserves energy and is also able to calculate thoroughly.

Another significant aspect is that, I had seen this move 3 moves before I played it, when I had to make the decision about whether I want to have an isolated pawn, At that time I mostly trusted my positional instinct over my calculation

Even though I got a very comfortable position after Qe2, as you can see:

Sadly, this game wasn't perfect even after this comfortable point. As I made a blunder which was losing all my advantage had my opponent found the best move, luckily he did not see it as he was low on time.

Let's do 1 more simple example.

This position is from my friend's game, he was black in this position and played a very solid game. Still, for our purposes, I would like you to guess the candidate/best moves for white from a particular position where black has just played c6 to restrict the mobility of white's Knight on a3.

In this position, white realizes that his knight on a3 is badly placed, so he forces black to create an outpost for the white knight, by going Nc2.

This wasn't the only plan to continue, but I think this was the most solid. After getting the outpost on b5, I think the game can only have two results.

Instructive examples from GM games.

From this point onwards, I want all the viewers to spend at least 2–3 minutes on every position and figure out the plan.

This should be how you approach every position, not only in this blog post but IN ALL YOUR GAMES!:

1. Look for the weakness in your camp, be it a piece, a square, a structure.
2. Try and find weakness in the opposing camp.
3. Look, if you can find a move which does both eliminates/improves your current weakness, while also exploiting your opponents' weakness.
4. If you can't find such a move, then try and find a move, which simply eliminates/improves your weakness.
   1. For example: you could try improving your piece position but maneuvering it to a better square.
   2. Or you could offer to exchange your piece which is weak for a good one.
   3. Or, If you have doubled pawns, try to eliminate it by offering exchange on a square protected by one of the doubled pawns.

Again, just like the first two games. I want to show you a game from the Indian National Championship, in this game the veteran GM Sasikiran is playing against a young opponent.

After an exchange of rooks on c3, Black retreats his knight to c6. In this position, I want the readers to assess the weakness in both the camps.

Here, GM-Sasikiran realizes that the black king is rather fragile and also that currently his knight on f3 and the bishop g2 are not doing much. So, he maneuvers his knight, following the approach of eliminating/improving your weak piece, while also exploiting the weakness of the opponent.

After this the conversion was also beautiful (though with some inaccuracies) though currently it out of our scope of discussion, but you should still go through the game.

2nd Example.

The next position is from the opening phase of the game. The black knight is currently under-developed. So, I want you to assess the position and find the best square for your knight. You don't need to have concrete calculation, just think about where would I want my Knight. After that, you can try calculating whether it is feasible or not.

Karpov assessed that the best place for his knight was on e6. The execution cost three moves, which is okay for a position like this. Though, during your games you will also have to assess, whether you have enough time or not.
Here, many players may have considered Nd7 Nf8 Ne6. Which is also just as good, but maybe Karpov wanted to keep his castling options open at all times of the games.

3rd example

This example is from a game between Anish Giri and Anand Vishwanathan. Anish has managed to get a bishop pair vs Anand's two knights. Now, to understand the next moves played by white. You should know a couple of things about having a bishop pair.

\>1\. Bishops completely dominate Knights in an open position\. Whereas knight may have the upper hand in a closed position\. So\, as a player with the bishop pair you should look to open the position by multiple pawn exchanges\.
\>2\. Bishops genreally are superior on the longer diagonals\, mainly as they can control the center better\, but also because they have higher range on that diagonal\.

Now asses the position:

I think after my advices, this would have been easy to solve, Anish went Be2-Bf3-Bg2.

Though the instructive character of the game doesn't end there. I want you to look at the position below, and find the next move.

Anish realizes that his bishops are well positioned now, so he decides to open the position. Though, I would like to mention that this move is not approved by the engine, but still it makes total sense in positional terms as you want to have more open position for your bishops.

Anish went on to convert the game pretty easily, you can go through it once and enjoy the demonstration of skill by him.

4th example,

Kasparov is playing Petrosian. Black has just captured with hg6, and It looks like white is in trouble. Black is coming b5-b4, white is unable to castle short as the h3 pawn is hanging, and overall white pieces seem less coordinated. So, I want you all to think for 4–5 minutes and look for feasible options in the position below.

Kasparov realizes that that his bishop on c4 is vulnerable, and also that h3 and f3 square could do better with some extra support. So, he goes Bf1!
With the plan of Bg2. Look at the position after the maneuvering.

It seems clear that white is the one with the upper hand now., though, further into the game, petrosian put up a wonderful display of defensive resources and won the game. It may not be that relevant to our current discussions, but I want you to look at this position and think about what did Petrosian play. It would be blatant cruelty, to not show such an instructive position.

He went 35... Kc6!!

He uses the very king he is trying to defend as a piece. I may make a blog on using your king as a piece some day, but currently you should play through the game, and enjoy the sheer beauty of it.

5th example

NOTE: I go deeper and more off-topic into some positional concepts, but it would be cruel to rob the readers of the beauty of this game.

I consider this game a masterpiece is positional play. Though, this game is not that famous, but I feel it deserves more recognition for how calmly Ulf converts it despite knowing that he has a very, very clear advantage, in terms of space and piece activity.,

I want you to look at the position below, and not only find the best move, but calculate all the variations related to it. I have to say this because the best move maybe very instinctive but when you calculate all lines, and try and finding the reasoning behind them, you get a way better grasp and understanding of the position.

The move is actually 31.e4!
Black can't take fe4 because that would open up the b1-h7. After that, black would just be immediately lost. If, he tries to take Bd4, then after e5 his bishop is actually trapped in the center of the board.

I want you all to look at the position again and think about the next course of action from white.

It is clear that after e3-e4-e5, white has a very comfortable position. White has a lot of space, and there is no scope for counter play from black. Still, in this position, the white queen and bishop are not as active as that can be. So, Ulf realizes that his bishop would be doing better along the b1-h7 diagonal or the a2-g8 diagonal. While the queen also gets faster access to the kingside with this move. The current threat of White is Qg3 followed by Bb3

Again give some time to this diagram before reading on.

Black responded to Bd1 with Rg8. On the surface, you may think this makes no difference to white's plan. As white can still go Qg3, but now black can respond with Be8, followed by Bf7 for Bb3. This position is also winning for white, but Ulf finds a brilliant move which makes the matters very simple and direct for him.

Rg6! This move threatens Re6, though Re6 may look like a bad move, as it leads to loss in material for white, but after that, Black's position completely collapses as black has no defense for white's light squared bishop.
Black decides to defend the e6 pawn, the only way to do which is by exchanging on d6. The next move by white is rather obvious to me, but still I want you to give some time to think which pawn will white capture on d6 with, and more importantly why?

Here, Ulf went ed6, because that gives him a square for his Queen on e5 and also because, cd6 could allow some counterplay from black due to c5. He easily managed to manuver his pieces to most ideal squares:-

Here the next two moves by white were Kc1, and Ba2. This moves may not make much sense to you, as they were played just to reach move no.40 and get their extra time.

If you show anyone this position, they would think white has significantly more active pieces, and white just needs a final tactical blow. Here, Ulf shows immense understanding and plays Rg2, forcing the exchange of queen and going into a totally winning endgame.
When I first saw this move, I thought that Ulf played it because he was a very very strong endgame technitian, and was simply more comfortable in playing an endgame. But even the engine suggests that you trade of the queens.

This is an important lesson:
Playes are often stubborn to transition from one phase of the game to another as they feel very comfortable with their current position, but you have to be very flexible with your plan and methodology.

Even after the exchange of queens, you must be alert. In this position black can play e5 threatening for some counterplay. Though it would still be better for white, Ulf plays another great move to stop all kinds of counterplay from black. He forces the black rook away from the g-file wtth 43.h6

After this Rg8 is forced, and after an exchange of rooks, white tied down black's pieces for the pawn and while planning to enter with his king through, b4-a5 but his opponent resigned soon realizing that his position is hopelessly lost.

I want to remind you that, at no point in this game did white have the upper hand in terms of material advantage, Still we could see that white was clearly winning positionally since the last 20 moves. This is the beauty of positionallly squeeezing a game.

Thank You

If you didn't like the blog, please inform me what I could do to make it better and if you did like it, then suggest me which topics should I discuss if I am to write more blogs.