In the final chapter of his excellent exercise book Grandmaster Preparation: Strategic Play, Jacob Aagaard presents the following position:
The problem isn’t just that white is up a pawn; it’s that white is both up a pawn and has the more coordinated position. Dominguez played 29… Bf4 30 Qe2 Bxe5 31 dxe5 Qc2 32 Qxc2 Rxc2 33 Rd2 and lost. Aagaard states that black should be asking himself how to do something more useful with his uncoordinated pieces, starting with the bishop. He explains:
Although the bishop seemingly has no function or future at the moment, simply exchanging it made no sense. Black had to find a way to use this weakness as a strength.
He suggest the following variation instead: 29… Qc2! 30 Nc5! Rab8 31 Qa6 Be3! 32 Ncd3 (white cannot allow 32 fxe3? Nxe3 with a catastrophe on g2) Nf4! 33 Ng4 Bd2 34 Nxf4 Bxf4:
Aagaard’s suggestion has come to pass: the bishop really is quite strong and there is no easy way to reduce black’s activity. The pejorative “uncoordinated” that applied to black’s position in the first diagram now applies to white’s.
Rather than start my own training by trying to solve the puzzles Aagaard’s book, I decided to try his approach on my own recent1 losses. My goal was to avoid tunnel vision, the “oh, I guess I have to play this move” approach that is so often followed by a slow deterioration of the position. I wanted as much as possible to apply Aagaard’s idea of identifying positional problems an reimagine them as positional strengths.
Game #1: The Nimzo-Indian Blockade
I played this game in the last round of the 2021 US Amateur Team West. It was the third game of the day, played online at the height of the pandemic, and I was in a bad mood. I’d lost control of a great attacking position in morning round and then had been forced to take a lifeless draw in round five. It’s also worth noting that I hadn’t played the black side of the Nimzo-Indian since 1995, so I was out of my strategic comfort zone.
I found my way to the one type of Nimzo position I know a little about2, the c5-d6-e5 blockade on the dark squares. We were on the outskirts of theory when white played a move that doesn’t really fit with the nature of the position: 11 Bg5:
The problem is that white’s not really interested in taking on f6. Imagine 11… Kh8!? 12 Bxf6 gxf6, when black can undermine the center with f5 twice and make use of the half-open g-file. I got fixated here on a single idea: move the Nf6 and play f5 as quickly as possible, starting with 11… Ne8. It’s not the worst move in the world, but it fails answer Aagaard’s question “How can I turn my somewhat mediocre pair of knights into a strength?” Instead it takes the more active of the two steeds and strands it on e8 in order to open the b1-h7 diagonal for white’s currently buried bishop. Imagine instead 11… Nh5 12 00 h6 13 Be3 Ng6, taking aim at the f4 square and coordinating black’s pieces around a common goal.
The game continued 12 Ng3 f6?! (another bit of positional misunderstanding: I thought that I was avoiding weaknesses, but it’s more important to control g5 and get the pawn off of h7) 13 Bd2:
Now it’s 13… f5 and mission accomplished, but since the mission didn’t really meet the needs of the position in the first place, this is a good place to look for alternatives. One idea is to slowly build up to the f5-break rather than playing it right away, such as 13… g6 14 Bh6 (14 h4! creates more serious problems for black) 14… Ng7 15 f4?! exf4 16 Bxf4 g5! 17 Bd2 Ng6: black is fighting for the dark squares and the Ng7 is doing an admirable job against white’s Ng3. Another slow strategy is 13… b6, asking white to commit to castling before undertaking any action in the center or kingside. As it was, white happily continued 14 exf5 Nxf5:
Something has gone wrong: white’s pieces are impressively placed while black’s are mostly on the back rank. My opponent missed an opportunity to make my life very uncomfortable with 15 Qc2!, but what he played kept some advantage: 15 Ne4 Nf6 (there isn’t time for 15… h6 16 00 Nf6 17 f4!) 16 Bg5 Qd7 (a weird move, hoping to induce mistakes like 17 Nxf6?! gxf6 18 Bd2 Nh4 19 00 and now both 19… Qg7 and 19… Nxg2!? are possible—but this begs the question, why not 16… Qc7?) 17 g4! Nxe4 18 Bxe4:
A key feature of the position is now self-evident: the Nf5 is poorly placed. It cannot jump to d4 or h4 but must awkwardly retreat, leaving white with two active bishops, not significant weaknesses, and attacking chances on the kingside. 18… Ne7 19 h3 Ng6 is a natural continuation, but white can play for a dangerous attack with 20 Qc2 Qf7 21 00. Black should now sacrifice a pawn to activate his long suffering knight before white can play f4: 21… Nf4! 22 Bxh7+ Kh8 with counterplay.
Let’s reconsider the words of the previous paragraph, that the Nf5 “must awkwardly retreat.” There’s an alternative to Ne7, cheekily suggested by the computer, that I found quite eye-opening. The Nf5 is bad, so let’s force white to take it by playing 18… h6!? Retreating the bishop allows Nh4, and of course white is going to take this opportunity to win the exchange: 19 Bxf5 Rxf5 20 gxf5 hxg5 21 Qf3 Qxf5 22 Qxf5 Bxf5:
I don’t think there’s much chance that I would evaluate this ending correctly from afar, but it’s surprisingly solid for black. The first point is that it’s hard for white to open lines for his rooks: 23 Kd2 g4 24 Raf1 e4 is annoying. The second point is that black’s pieces are well coordinated at last and can go after the weak white pawns: for example, 23 Rg1 Kf7! 24 Rxg5 Kf6 25 Rg2 Rh8 with Rh4 to follow.
In any event, from the previous diagram I played the very strange 18… Nh6 (hoping for 19 Bxh6, I suppose, but leaving the knight with no future) and immediately blundered: 19 h3 Qf7? 20 Qc2, winning the pawn on h7. During the game I was shocked that I made such an obvious mistake, but it followed pretty naturally from my poor strategic understanding of the position. If I’d been thinking about danger on the b1-h7 diagonal I probably wouldn’t have played Ne8 and f5 in the first place.
I ignored strategic goals of the minor pieces in this game and paid the price, getting ground down in a pawn down ending. My plan, on reflection, seemed to be to move knights to squares where I hoped white would capture, a poor excuse for strategic thinking that left me floundering when my opponent played more patiently than I. The chance to try to hold an exchange down ending never crossed my mind, but I think that this kind of resource is exactly what Aagaard wants us to be more aware of.
This was an interesting exercise that I’ll be returning to with a couple other games later this week. Until then, thanks for reading.
Recent being a relative term since I have averaged about 5-10 tournament games a year since the births of children two and three. Let’s say that “recent” covers roughly the last decade.
I mean, I thought I knew something about it; the moves in the game suggest otherwise.