So what do I do now?
Submitted by
on Tue, 07/14/2009 at 4:44am.
Any of the better players who have played against a Lower Rated Player (LRP), either in a friendly or a teaching game, will be familiar with this position.
The LRP will generally play good developing moves (usually following an opening book) up to the point after castling and then one of two things happen.
1: they play a silly pawn move and when asked why they reply ' i didnt know what else to play'
2: they come right out with the headline of this blog and ask 'what do I do now?'.
There can be many reasons as to why they suddenly feel lost but that is for discussion in another blog on another day.
When the question arises you could launch into a long explanation of all the various options (and watch as their eyes slowly glaze over) or you could just give them ideas for the specific position that has arisen. The problem then is that they will return time and again as each different problem position occurs.
What I want to do here is to start building a reference library of usual positions arising from the opening and with diagrams point out ideas that could be considered and why. This would then be available to all LRP who could consult it just as they would an opening book or game dbase.
Each diagram should only cover one/two points so that the LRP is not overloaded. I am hoping to persuade our better players to contribute their own ideas to this blog and thus help build up a broad variety of thoughts. (many heads are better then one).
I will start with an easy one. The danger in this position is that black wil exchange on c3 leaving e4 unguarded. Possible move is:-
Re1, protecting e4 and preparing to be in control of the e-file when it later becomes (semi)open.
On a similar theme:- Re1 is again a likely move as this time it will help support the N on e5 and long term will be well placed to take control of the open e-file.