Originally posted by Wulebgr All of the pieces remain on the board, and black is on move, yet white already has an advantage. How do you explain why?
[fen]r2q1rn1/1bpn1pbk/pp1pp1pp/8/1PPPP3/P1N1BNP1/3Q1PBP/2RR2K1 b - - 0 14[/fen]
(The position was taken from a blitz game I played this morning.)
I couldn't give you a major reason like white has a forced mate, but black appears to have lost a tempo moving his knight back to g8 after castling, as well as losing tempo apparently fiddling about with his king, whilst white has a strong kingside and much more developed pieces.
Originally posted by Wulebgr All of the pieces remain on the board, and black is on move, yet white already has an advantage. How do you explain why?
[fen]r2q1rn1/1bpn1pbk/pp1pp1pp/8/1PPPP3/P1N1BNP1/3Q1PBP/2RR2K1 b - - 0 14[/fen]
(The position was taken from a blitz game I played this morning.)
I'm not sure what you're looking for, but after a quick glance.
White has a tremendous space advantage and much more active pieces.
Black is cramped and defensive and doesn't really have any good moves. Most pawn moves look like they seal up black bishops even more than they already are.
Originally posted by Red Night I'm not sure what you're looking for, but after a quick glance.
White has a tremendous space advantage and much more active pieces.
Black is cramped and defensive and doesn't really have any good moves. Most pawn moves look like they seal up black bishops even more than they already are.
Ne7 looks good. White hasn't an easy way to open the game. Later on black could follow on with f5 and have something started for himself. By which I don't want to claim black is any better.
Originally posted by zebano White has a spacial plus and control of the center. As often happens in such cases, white also has more mobility for his pieces.
Mobilty seems the key to me, but the fuzzy word development keeps entering my head, as it is used in so many books. White's greater mobility stems from having more space, and reveals why space is an advantage.
(I don't have the answer, but thought the position might generate some productive discussion. Fritz 9 gives white an advantage of slightly more than 1/2 pawn. But Fritz is mute when it comes to explaining the positional advantages.)
1) White has a protected blockade of pawns controling central squares, which give him space (by cramping blacks)
and also, may give white a little edge in an endgame (pawns closer to promotion)
2) White on the whole, has more active pieces.
Blacks bishops do not have full control of nice long diagonals, so they are not *currently* doing much.
Black has one nicely placed Knight, and the a terribly placed one elsewhere (moving that one to a better square costs tempo)
And Blacks Rooks are not making themselves useful either.
Now if you compare that to whites postion: -
White has both Knights controling central Squares, his rooks are controling the central files, etc.
3) Seeing as White has more space, and active peices its quite clear that white will be the one to call the shots, Blacks postion is and rather passive, which of course means Black will be forced to play defencivly.
4) white has no threats to worry about, therefore with the king very safe white can start thinking about attacking.
and try and crack that nut open.
On saying this however, I'd say Black doesn't have too much to worry about -- that extra tempo(or tempi) white has probably won't be sufficient to claim a win, or even, a major advantage.
Re advantages. White certainly has a space advantage, but black is compact, his king is safe, and some people like playing the Hippopotamus Defence. I think white's real advantage in these games is to do with flexibility; he can respond to black's pawn breaks in ways that make black's position look silly. For instance, if black breaks ...c5, white can respond with d5 and get a Benoni where ...b6 with ...Bb7 is just waste of two tempi.
Originally posted by Mephisto2 Ne7 looks good. White hasn't an easy way to open the game. Later on black could follow on with f5 and have something started for himself. By which I don't want to claim black is any better.
I probably over stated the case when I said "any" good moves. I probably meant to say many and was speaking in the context of black bottling up his own bishops.
however, after looking at the position for another 60 seconds, I agree with you that Ne7 looks like the most promising continuation for Black. Of course, that wasn't the question and I really haven't done any analysis on the position.
Positional evaluation
06 Jun '06 15:551 edit
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