i play the sicilian!

the caro is a strong defense.

Great introduction to this game and theory of the golden pawns, I likem the advice of trading pieces and not the pawns. This should be a great game and I look forward to seeing what happens!

Incidentally, 2.Nc3 is also good (instead of the often played 2.d5 d5 3.Nc3).

good developing so far and d4 looks to be coming with the bishop moving out and then knight to allow castling early but this leave the black king open, so that will not be played Edit: 1/18/16 I am glad to see this game reposted by jkarp. Nc3 now seems to be a better move as it would protect the e4 pawn.

One possibility that might be worth looking at is to ignore the attack on e4, and advance the pawn to e5 (3.e5). It does have certain drawbacks, I guess, but they aren't fatal.

@jkarp: good on you for spotting similarities arising from disparate openings. As your experience expands you will find yourself more and more recognising shapes, motifs, tactical and strategic points that can arise in different contexts and settings.

I see a chance to castle on whites king side if that is your plans

i also dont understand this move.

I think jkarp is still inexperienced enough to think there is a threat here. This wastes far to much time. Already black is better.

I think developing the bishop on f1 would of been better. If to b5 for check,black would play d7 of move Nc6 a good move if you took the N with a bishop,black takes with pawn and black is in a better position.

@redfox17 the idea of defending 4. bb5 with Nc6 has over time not worked out well for Black. Since one of the major strategic pillars of the caro-kann is to prevent pawn weakness. Therefore, after 4. ...Nc6 5. Bxc6+ bxc6 leaves black with a difficult pawn to defend on c6.

@jkarp - I think you might have to revisit the advice your pal Jack Stockel must have given you: 'don't move anything twice in the opening.' Possibly he added a rider 'unless there is a tactic', but by that he would have meant something clear cut and (most likely) short ranged. At that it cuts both ways ( a tactic to gain something, or a tactic to prevent loss of something). Even if you are thinking, say, Qf3 to support Nxf7, there is really no tactic here, as Black simply stymies your scheme by 4...Nf6 (which is precisely his next turn!).

Sadly, the White Knight was fine there, and White possibly could continue with development (4.d4 followed by Nc3) to get something going, but this is a definite Positional Blunder.

The best way to trick an opponent is to prepare it and make it forced. Ng5 threats f7 yeah but nothing is forced there, even the add up of the queen can be countered easily by Nf6 or g6. We should never play on wishing opponent mistake and make the opposite. Think your opponent will play the best move.

Note that this move has aggressive and defensive motivations. The annotator might have mentioned that it also covers the f7-square from attack, whicjh is true, but that is so incidental to his main purpose - a bonus as it were - it scarcely comes under his attention that there is (or was) any real threat to the f7-square at all.

It offers black a chance to exchange a bishop black doesn't mind anyway.

@ jkarp how true and then you retreat or trade off bishops.

What that tells you - or should - that not all even exchanges are even!

White is helping Black for nothing (another problem with this move besidethe exchange of the good White and bad Black Bishops. This is a positional imbalance that favors Black. I say ?! for the fact that White is playing this move. Understand that in most games, Black prefers the DSB while White prefers the LSB.

Why is the DSB so good for black and the LSB so good for white? Is this something specific to the Caro Kann?

@Jkarp and redfox: The drawback white assists black in achieving another strategic goal of the caro-kann which is the exchange of his worst bishop for whites best bishop. @ Chesskingdom64 I am impressed that you understand the imbalances nature of only having the DSBs on the board. Matter of fact it often happen that when white tries to fight for e5 his pawns end up on dark squares and black's are put on light squares. This makes black's bishop inheriantly better. I did not mention this here because it is well beyond to scope of this game. @Russ201224 presently the DSB is not has good as white's LSB. I was speaking overall through out the game. Typically black will have pawns on the light squares making his LSB worse and his DSB is free to roam outside the pawn chain. Making it the better piece. This is why you will see black exchange his LSB early in most caro-kanns.

Unless black develops Knight and takes your bishop!

No, Black doesn't really want his Knight on d7, but it still works. If he does, Black would take with the b8-Knight.

This is a good position for black.

Knight takes bishop and is know in front of the queen. Not for long! then queen wont be so boxed in.

@Jkarp in this type of position the knights do not hinder the queen since black wants to play Qc7 or Qb6. As for the less room to maneuver you are right black often suffers from a slightly cramped position but this is temporary. The other reason why Nbld7 is better than Qxd7 is that if white decides to take on f6 which often happens in the caro-kann black prevent pawn weaknesses by recapturing with the knight.

Black is not so much cramped here, but solid, with quite a lot of pent up potential energy. Meanwhile, of what remains of White's army, just one man has been moved. Three of Black's have.

white needed to contest the center.

great move holding the center with one of your golden pawns!

This is good for White, but to keep it up, he must continue developing the minor pieces.

Most caro players dream of having blacks position.

French pawn structure w/o the bad bishop!

Black needed this move to keep up.

How would you do that?

looking good so far!

At this point you look at what elyhim has just said and think: 'What move will exploit or attack those weaknesses?' That should lead you to what Black plays next.

The real point behind attacking b2 and d4 even though you defend both easily is to develop my pieces with slight tempo. 8. ...Qb6 forces you to play 9. b3 instead of developing your knight, castling or queen.

This is one of the 'tricks of the trade' of strong players: using threats to gain time for manoeuvring, or to induce weaknesses in the opponent's position. If 9.b3 (as played), White gets left with dark square weaknesses of the Q-side, and the c-pawn becomes something of a problem as it will be hard to arrange protection for it from another pawn (bearing in mind a Black rook may very soon be eyeing it from c8).

I recently learned about overworked pieces. Trying to play 9.b3 may defend the pawn, but it has potential weaknesses of the possible Rc8 played by black.

thats well played!

My previous comment notwithstanding, Whuite has nothing better.

White would now have to keep up with all of Black's threats. The d4 pawn is another potential target.

He didn't waste time because he forces you to move. In fact, you wasted time by moving your knight there, and now moving it back to where it came from. Those two moves could have been used, say, castling and playing Nd2 instead.

@ jkarp This was necessary to get your pesky knight out of g5

@jkarp - Black's point was to FORCE you to defend it (move it away). Look at his plan (which he states explicitly): 9...h6 10.Nf3 g5 11.B-somewhere Bg7. Note that he's not all that concerned where your knight and Bishop go (within reason), but imposes sufficiently upon your time to 'get in' his projected fianchetto.

You bring up a great point: "what if your opponent had another pawn or piece to take it? There is an easy math formula to deal with such problems. What you do is count the number of pieces and pawns controlling a square verses the number of pieces and minus the pawns your opponent has controlling the square. Therefore, 2-6 = -4. So if you took on g5 you would go down a piece and a pawn.

That proves that you can't do everything you want to do.

I foresaw this move being a potential threat.

Pawn breaks favor the more developed and active side. White needs to prepare.

Black's ...Rc8 has created a fair bit of pressure down the c-file that White must have found a bit niggling.