How would you play this as white? I ended up taking a quick draw in the game, because it guaranteed me first place in a tournament, but honestly I was kind of drawing a blank anyway about how to proceed.
Obviously, black's d-pawn is isolated and besieged, but it's also adequately defended, and I didn't see any good way to increase the presssure. Bringing up the king to that front exposes him to attack from the rooks. c4 doesn't get the job done after black replies with d4, and then it's white's queenside that's under attack.
Otherwise, I don't see any other weaknesses in the black position. I was planning to blockade with Rd4, move the other rook to e1 to seize that file, and then begin a wholesale advance on the kingside to try to create something else to attack. I wasn't particularly sold on that plan, though -- it seemed kind of nebulous, and as soon as I take any pressure off of d5, black can start playing against my queenside pawn with b5 & advances from there.
I'm interested to hear other suggestions -- was there anything worth trying here?
Here's a position from a recent game of mine:
How would you play this as white? I ended up taking a quick draw in the game, because it guaranteed me first place in a tournament, but honestly I was kind of drawing a blank anyway about how to proceed.
Obviously, black's d-pawn is isolated and besieged, but it's also adequately defended, and I didn't see any good way to increase the presssure. Bringing up the king to that front exposes him to attack from the rooks. c4 doesn't get the job done after black replies with d4, and then it's white's queenside that's under attack.
Otherwise, I don't see any other weaknesses in the black position. I was planning to blockade with Rd4, move the other rook to e1 to seize that file, and then begin a wholesale advance on the kingside to try to create something else to attack. I wasn't particularly sold on that plan, though -- it seemed kind of nebulous, and as soon as I take any pressure off of d5, black can start playing against my queenside pawn with b5 & advances from there.
I'm interested to hear other suggestions -- was there anything worth trying here?