lichess.org
Donate

How to defend vs knight attacking castled king's pawns?

This pattern: http://i.imgur.com/LaiT6RK.jpg

You can see how I continued in the game here:
http://el.lichess.org/2wyx4Yvs/black#31

I played superbly (by my standards) but as usual, lost in the endgame.
But I have seen the attacking pattern pictured above many times and often fall to it. How can I defeat such attacks?
Thanks, but I was looking for more examples of dealing with this pattern, as well as similar patterns led by a direct knight attack on the king's pawns.
Imho the main mistake was to allow g6 and thus leaving your king unprotected. Leaving the Bishop as a blockade against the Pawn d would be strategically better, with the aim to move the Knight over a5 to c4 to remove the Queen blockading your own Pawn plus keeping the lines closed against the enamy Rock ppulling the most out of your light officers.
30. ... g6 instead of bf3 would have kept your King save.

Until 30 your game was very very good.

Hope this helped.
The game was played really well, except for the unfortunate last few moves. These kinds of positions can get dangerous if you have no pieces there to defend, but I'd say it did not look too dangerous. But be careful that your opponent can sometimes sacrifice the knight if he manages to bring the Rook or other pieces to continue an attack! But then, tactics depends a lot on the position itself

I'd say in the end it could have helped to have the knight (f5 would have been a tremendous outpost from move 30 on), or the bishop even. Also, blocking with g6 since youi pushed h5, would have left no way to ener the position (being careful to keep an eye on f7).

Remember always to check your king safety before you shift all your pieces on the other wings.

Good luck

DT
Btw 16. .....h6 was absolutely legit in this situaton, af far as I see it.
#4, that's not true, because of the advanced b pawn. He could have avoided the threat on his king if he went to e8 after the blunder Qf4+, thus queening his pawn.

Yes, I allowed the computer analysis to show me this truth, but despite your relative strength in chess, you are wrong.

Yes going Ke8 would have been better than Kg7 but it never had to come to this when playing 30....g6. Avoiding this blunder surely is the better way to win in chess.
#1 Ouch, what a tough break! Pushing the pawns defending your king is the most dangerous thing you can do, because on separate ranks they can't stop pawn breaks such as 32. g6!

In my opinion, instead of 17... Nf5, that knight ultimately belongs on f8 to protect h7. So an idea like Ng6-Nf8 is worth considering.

This topic has been archived and can no longer be replied to.