Best Way to Attack a Castled Opponent.

Hey guys, I was hoping you wouldn't mind giving me your advice/ tips on how to deal with an opponent who has castled. Most people I play here castle early into the game (around five moves in) which makes attacking them quite difficult.

I realise it's hard for you to offer advice without seeing a particular game layout, but I was wondering:

if there were any general tips on what to do once they've castled.

If there is a difference in which side they castle too (Kingside VS Queenside).

Any good traps/ tactics that work well against a castled opponent.

All advice is much appreciated. Thanks to you all.

R

A castle is not invulnerable. A supported queen on g7 or h7 causes mate (with white playing against a kingside castle). Aiming your pieces towards that cause will force your opponent to defend, often with the very pawns that protect the king. At your level, this will often lead to mistakes that you can take advantage of. Even at higher levels, it may just be enough to exchange pieces in order to double your opponent's kingside pawns and end up with a superior endgame position.

Hey Azukikuru, thanks for your advice. I totally agree with the supported queen being a good way through, the only problem being is that an easy defence to this is through putting the g or h pawn (whichever is being thretened) up one square so it is defended by the other pawns on either side of it. But the idea of getting the king's pawn to double up sounds promising. Do you have any games personally where it has worked well for you?

how about taking a look at the Classic Bishop Sacrifice also known as Greek Gift

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_gift_sacrifice

and the double bishop sacrifice is also worth-looking

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasker_-_Bauer,_Amsterdam_1889

The theme is to broad to be answered in one post, and obviously if there would be an universal answer, everyone would be using it.

I would reccomend "Art of attack in chess" by Vukovic.

There are several chapters on attacking the castled king.

Well, the first one to come to mind is this:

It's not exactly what I was talking about, but it does demonstrate how doubling up a kingside pawn with a piece exchange can severely expose the king.

Wow, thanks Tatiana92, that's really useful. Cheers for providing examples too =). They look good, but both seem to require quite a sacrifice (especially the double bishop sacrifice) but I guess that is good chess, knowing when and how to use sacrifices.

Are there any good stratagies that don't require a sacrifice?

Hey Dragec, yeah I thought that would be the case, and that's what I apologised for at the start, I just wanted general ways of how to deal with it considering it seems to be a tactic I keep coming up against.

Somebody said: the best defender of a castled position is the King's (f) Knight at f6(3)

The absence of this knight is what makes things like the Greek Bishop sac work.

If you can find a way to advance the e pawn to deny the knight of this square, you'e halfway there. Unfortunately, opponents don't always co-operate. (except French and Nimzo-Indian players, who allow e5 as a matter of course)

The other way would be to fianchetto a bishop.For example, if your opponent plays a Stonewall attack system, by fianchettoing your bishop, you'd spoil his main attack plans.

Fianchettoed position are resilient to diagonal attack, and bit more vulnerable to pawn storms. And removal of the fianchetoed bishop creates a lot of weak squares.

Just to remind you that a castling is a common thing, it have a double purpose of protecting the king and activating the rook. I wouldn't call it a tactic.

I never intended to read forums when I joined chess.com.   But since I am now reading them I am learning many things, such as, suggestions for good books.  

Most of what I learned about castling I learned the hard way, that is, watching others invade my secure fort, as I thought of it.  The reason for that was, I taught myself and the first book I had on chess only told how to castle and nothing about defending or attacking it, nor about back rank mate.  I like the term chamber mate. However, each time my castle was broken into, I learned a valuable lesson that I doubt I would have remembered nearly as well as reading about it.

Of course, I did loan books from the library and purchase more books later on.  Beginners now have so much going for them with chess.com and other wonderful sites to learn from. 

I find the greek gift, as shown by Tatiana92, very useful. Mind you, that only works successfully if the opponent does the "right thing".

you're exactly right Henster97 , but I guess unless they are quite skilled, it would look like a good move in their eyes and so might work because of this

Actually, the bishop sacrifice is quite sound in some instances. Here's an example game that I posted last week in a thread that seems to have been deleted:

It really depends on the situation. In general though:

-Damage his king side pawns

-Get power aimed at his king

-take out his defenders

-Sac pieces if need be, but only when it is fruitful

cool

Hey Azukikuru, thanks for the demo game, that was really interesting. It was quite impressive the way that black was able to escape what looked like an inevitable win for you.

A good example of you using the greek gift to a big advantage.

Would it have been quite so effective if you hadn't had the knight/ queen combo to make the most of it?

If you haven't already castled, you could castle on the opposite side, and then force your pawns forward to break the pawn defense in front of the king. You would usually need to sacrifice at least a minor piece to get this working, and of course, your opponent could also do this to you!

Hmm, PLSCPlayLearnShare, that sounds like it could be tricky. Of course you could castle to the opposite side, but the idea of a mass pawn charge seems like it would take a fair few moves and depends on there being nothing in the way.

Has it worked for you before?