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Best way to attack a Fianchetto?

Best way to attack a Fianchetto?

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vivify
rain

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What's the best way to attack a Fianchetto if both players castled on the same side? In addition to any advice, some instructive games would also be appreciated.

Thanks.

The Pickled Walrus

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Exchange one with your queen and same coloured bishop and block the other one with your pawns.
Once his bishop is exchanged his squares will be weak and you can use those squares.

I'm only 1600 so take that with a grain of salt.

You could also send your wing pawns forward and 'sac sac mate' as Fischer says.
(I'm not good enough for that strategy)

Ragwort
Senecio Jacobaea

Yorkshire

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@vivify

This is one set up with the fianchetto bishop in place that is not preceded by a white pawn storm. There are several opening variations aimed at getting this for example the grand prix attack of sicilian and Blackmar Diemer (against 5... g6) or with colours reversed, lines of the dutch defence against white's fianchetto. If you have the fianchetto and see Qe1/e8 this is what your opponent is going for!

D
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Quarantined World

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@vivify said
What's the best way to attack a Fianchetto if both players castled on the same side? In addition to any advice, some instructive games would also be appreciated.

Thanks.
It's good to either swap off the fianchetto bishop or at least get your one onto the same diagonal. I'm trying to find a game with same side castling where I played e4, f4 - f5 etc. that makes tactical sense. To get that set up your opponent has to make a lot of moves on the kingside so a queenside attack can make sense. It worked in this game, note though that there's a lot of inaccurate play, Crafty disagrees with half the moves of both players:

vivify
rain

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Thank you Rogwart and Deep Thought. Deep, if you don't mind, I'm going to be stealing your tactics. I really liked your game.

vivify
rain

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@ragwort said
@vivify

This is one set up with the fianchetto bishop in place that is not preceded by a white pawn storm. There are several opening variations aimed at getting this for example the grand prix attack of sicilian and Blackmar Diemer (against 5... g6) or with colours reversed, lines of the dutch defence against white's fianchetto. If you have the fianchetto and see Qe1/e8 this is what your opponent is going for!

[fen]5rk1/5pbp/6pB/6N1/7Q/8/8/8 [/fen]
This is a nice pattern to memorize. I appreciate this.

c

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Interesting question - some ideas here

Chris Guffogg
Alekhine's Gun

🤔 Bolton

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A perfect defensive set up & yet, setting up on the diagonal, an effective strike team. Indian Defences are difficult to break down. If you go for it you can spend the whole initiative you have🚬

n
Ronin

Hereford Boathouse

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I like Ragwort's example but the overall pawn structure will determine your options. You wouldn't likely succeed in getting that formation in something like the Grunfeld. A timely h4-h5 etc. is more likely then.

c

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Who is the miserable offender who thumbed my post down above?

How to attack the Kingside fianchetto. I have no link/affiliation to them and I though it was an excellent 25 minute video with some useful information.

Chess lesson and video looking at strategic ideas on how to attack the King side Fianchetto. Some of the strategic ideas are very well known and understood, for example creating a battery of bishop and queen aiming to swap off the fianchettoed bishop creating weak squares around the king, pinning the f pawn and utilizing its lack of mobility tactically, never the less some beautiful chess can be seen in the games presented as the Chess Masters themselves take these strategic ideas and turn them into chess art.

Thew video itself is a prelude to another video that we shall make covering the Colle chess opening and how to deal with the challenge of meeting the Kingside fianchetto if black plays the Kings Indian or the Gruenfeld or some other defense with a Kingside fianchetto

Here are the pgn's should you wish to play through them for yourself.

[Event "London (England)"]
[Site "London (England)"]
[Date "1863.??.??"]
[EventDate "?"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Wilhelm Steinitz"]
[Black "Augustus Mongredien"]
[ECO "B06"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "43"]

1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. c3 b6 4. Be3 Bb7 5. Nd2 d6 6. Ngf3 e5
7. dxe5 dxe5 8. Bc4 Ne7 9. Qe2 O-O 10. h4 Nd7 11. h5 Nf6
12. hxg6 Nxg6 13. O-O-O c5 14. Ng5 a6 15. Nxh7 Nxh7 16. Rxh7
Kxh7 17. Qh5+ Kg8 18. Rh1 Re8 19. Qxg6 Qf6 20. Bxf7+ Qxf7
21. Rh8+ Kxh8 22. Qxf7 1-0

[Event "Portoroz Interzonal"]
[Site "Portoroz SVN"]
[Date "1958.08.16"]
[EventDate "1958.08.05"]
[Round "8"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Robert James Fischer"]
[Black "Bent Larsen"]
[ECO "B77"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "61"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7
7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2 Nc6 9. Bc4 Nxd4 10. Bxd4 Be6 11. Bb3 Qa5
12. O-O-O b5 13. Kb1 b4 14. Nd5 Bxd5 15. Bxd5 Rac8 16. Bb3 Rc7 17. h4 Qb5 18. h5 Rfc8 19. hxg6 hxg6 20. g4 a5 21. g5 Nh5
22. Rxh5 gxh5 23. g6 e5 24. gxf7+ Kf8 25. Be3 d5 26. exd5 Rxf7
27. d6 Rf6 28. Bg5 Qb7 29. Bxf6 Bxf6 30. d7 Rd8 31. Qd6+ 1-0

[Event "Varna ol (Men) fin-A"]
[Site "Varna"]
[Date "1962.09.16"]
[EventDate "?"]
[Round "3"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Vlastimil Hort"]
[Black "Robert Eugene Byrne"]
[ECO "E80"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "35"]

1.c4 g6 2.Nc3 Bg7 3.d4 Nf6 4.e4 d6 5.f3 a6 6.Be3 c6 7.Qd2 b5
8.Bd3 Nbd7 9.Nge2 O-O 10.h4 e5 11.h5 Nxh5 12.g4 Nhf6 13.Bh6
exd4 14.Bxg7 Kxg7 15.Qh6+ Kh8 16.Nxd4 Ne5 17.Nxc6 Nxd3+ 18.Kd2
1-0

[Event "Minsk"]
[Site "Minsk"]
[Date "1986.??.??"]
[EventDate "?"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Vassily Ivanchuk"]
[Black "Grigory Serper"]
[ECO "B77"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "57"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3
O-O 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.Bc4 Bd7 10.h4 Rc8 11.Bb3 h5 12.O-O-O Ne5
13.Bg5 Rc5 14.f4 Nc6 15.e5 Bg4 16.Nxc6 Rxc6 17.f5 Rxc3 18.exf6 exf6 19.bxc3 fxg5 20.fxg6 Bxd1 21.Rxd1 gxh4 22.gxf7 Kh8 23.Rf1
Qa5 24.Rf6 Kh7 25.Qd3+ Kh8 26.Rf5 Bh6+ 27.Kb2 Qb6 28.Rxh5 Kg7 29.Rxh4 1-0

D
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Quarantined World

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@congruent said
Who is the miserable offender who thumbed my post down above?

How to attack the Kingside fianchetto. I have no link/affiliation to them and I though it was an excellent 25 minute video with some useful information.

Chess lesson and video looking at strategic ideas on how to attack the King side Fianchetto. Some of the strategic ideas are very well known and understo ...[text shortened]... 1 gxh4 22.gxf7 Kh8 23.Rf1
Qa5 24.Rf6 Kh7 25.Qd3+ Kh8 26.Rf5 Bh6+ 27.Kb2 Qb6 28.Rxh5 Kg7 29.Rxh4 1-0
I don't know who thumbed down your post. I'm sure the videos fine, however, the difficulty with all those games is that white either castled queenside or didn't castle. The question in the OP was how to attack the financhetto when both sides are castled on the same side, which makes h2-h4-h5 rather less attractive.

Chris Guffogg
Alekhine's Gun

🤔 Bolton

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1 edit

@DeepThought

Nor I (no sarcasam) the narrator may have played a part🤷‍♂️

c

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Study the games of these strong masters i.e Fischer, Steinitz. Before you get to sac, sac you have to place your pieces in an optimum position.

d

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One interesting way to combat a kingside fianchetto when you are also castled kingside is by trying to trade the dark-squared bishops (if you are White) and the light-squared bishops if you are Black. The typical strategy of simply running the flank pawn with h4-h5-h6 doesn't really work when both kings are castled on the same side, as you will be weakening your own king and you don't even have a rook to support the pawn advance. I play the Dutch defense (many instructive games on my YouTube channel), and oftentimes get to attack White's kingside in these g3 lines by playing Qe8-Qh5 and trying to play Bh3 to somehow exchange the light-squared bishops, thus weakening the enemy king.

If you got some value from this, please feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel for educational chess content. I regularly post instructional videos aimed at all experience levels from complete beginner to master!

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