SC Week 5/7: Say Simple Chess (Half-Open files)

 "Go back to the era of Capablanca and Alekhine and you will see Queen’s Gambits, hoards of them, with hoards of minority attacks descending from them."

Michael Stean

If you were thinking all this Simple Chess - the outposts, the pawn weaknesses, the open and half-open files - was for Masters and not for Average-Joe Chesser, have a look at this game from SayChess.

Played just a couple of days ago, it turns out to be a pretty much perfect example of the minority attack positions that’s been our theme this week . That is the half-open file we’ve been looking at the last few days and the open file, and the 7th rank entry point, that we studied last week.

Incidentally, if you’re new to QGD Exchange positions you might be thinking that Black’s 10 … b5 looks really odd. Well it’s not a popular choice in this, a well-known theoretical position. And yet it is a known plan as a response to White’s queenside pawn advance. Consider the position after White’s 12 b4. What does Black now have on c4?

But anyway, nicely done Martin. Nicely done. Michael Stean himself would have been proud.