BtM 38A: Kingside or Queenside?

 November 1988, Position G

White to play

Lahav - Y. Grunfeld, Tel Aviv 1988

Contributions to the comments box are welcome. I’ll reply with what the Masters have to say about their choice to anybody who suggests a move.

Scroll down to see some commentary from me and the Masters’ feedback.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

"The choice this time seems to be between prophylaxis on the queenside and an aggressive thrust on the kingside …."

- Paul Lamford

Or, to put it another way, 1 b4 or 1 g4. That is the question.

I, influenced by a lot of experience playing the Zaitsev back in the day (and a fair bit of fiddling about with the Benoni) went for 1 b4.

The calculation of the main line isn’t too difficult. 

1 b4  axb4, 2 axb4 Rxa1, 3 Qxa1 cxb4, 4 Na2

"… will regain the pawn with advantage." - Sue Arkell.

I had got that far and that was my feeling too. Admittedly, I hadn’t foreseen the 4 … f5 counter that appeared both in the game and Paul Littlewood’s analysis. Still, it was 10 BtM points coming my way.

More interesting to me now is 1 g4. It looks loosening, and yet, favoured by Kosten and GM Glenn Flear, the kingside pawn push clearly must have something to it.

Kosten suggests 1 g4 Ng7, 2 Bf4 and being ready to reroute the knight to c4 via b1 and d2 should Black push … b5-b4.

I rejected 1 g4 on general grounds. OK, I’ve pushed the knight back but then what? I didn’t see an obvious gain I could use as an argument for the committal kingside. 

On reflection there’s perhaps an analogy with those lines in the French Advance where White pushes all the pawns forward. Now I look at it again, I can also see that Black’s position is somewhat cramped and it’s not clear where a counter attack against the airy king will come from.

I think I’d still want to go with 1 b2-b4 if I had this position in a real game. After this second look, however, I can see that a pawn advance on the other side of the board deserved more attention than I gave it the first time around.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

POINTS

10: b4

8:  g4

5:  a4

2:  Nh4, Nh2, Qc2

MASTERS

b4: Levitt, Norwood, P. Littlewood, Pein, J. Littlewood, Botterill, S. Arkell

g4: Kosten, Flear

a4: CXG Sphinx

SOURCE

Lahav - Y. Grunfeld, Tel Aviv 1988 17 b4