Well, it would be nice if we could make your bishop not be a big pawn, try to avoid doing this to your poor bishop, but fixing this will take more than one move (e5 then moving the bishop) so we have to figure out if that is our priority. We want to do it eventually. I don't really want white to snack on the h6 pawn, that could be useful in winning. Push those passed pawns to h4 and g4, and then we can play g3. White will unpin the knight with ke2, so we may need to free up the bishop to ram a pawn home, but for now we need to save it. Rh8 is logical; rooks generally belong behind passed pawns. We could also consider rf8 threatening checkmate if the rook moves; if qb2 freeing the rook, rf6 guarding the pawn. However, in that case the rook is not behind any passed pawn, and it becomes hard to push our passed pawns. So it looks like we should follow the general rule of rooks behind passed pawns, and play rh8. Our queen is in a useful spot currently, although take a look at how it would look if white gets in ke2, qb2, rh5 and nb3. The queen would then look bad, boxed in almost like our bishop. However, we can play h5 and h4 right after rh8. White can try to prevent that with rh5. So say rh8, rh5 -- then we play e5 to free our bishop. I think its going to work out and we will be able to keep our pieces active and push those pawns making them a problem, but play it out against the computer.
So the strategy is:
(1) save the pawn under attack and get the rook well placed behind the passed hpawn where it does something useful, unlike where it is;
(2) free the bishop with e5. Maybe we won't strictly need too if white wastes time but its a good idea;
(3) push the hpawn to h4, then either the gpawn to g4 if possible, but depending on what white does we will likely need to send the bishop into battle via redeployment to e6 than likely g4 and f3 if desirable. With the bishop in the mix, it should be impossible for white to set-up to keep those pawns at bay.
(4) the black queen may be fine to stay where she is. Currently she is exerting a lot of pressure there, tying up the white pieces pretty well, and providing some support for advancing the pawns as well;
(5) the white queen should not be able to redeploy that usefully because the queen needs to be able to get back in time to prevent you just playing b2/b1 and queening.
(6) you should not need to move the apawn. You have two passed pawns over there, but they cant win without support, and it is more desirable to advance the ones on the opposite wing, keeping your king safe. If you or white figures a way to trade off all the pieces and get your h and g pawns, then with the pieces off the board, the passed b and a pawns will be enough to win easily, but right now with the queen on the board, it doesn't looks helpful/doable to push those. Its useful to keep this in mind though -- you don't actually need to ram those pawns home if you can force trade off of all the pieces by pushing them.
Hello all.
I ended up in this position by playing against computer level 4 and I find it a bit difficult for beginners as I am. I won this game, buy using white's mistakes. I am wondering what should be the plan here for black and what is for white if it played smart on both sides.
Thanks for all the good comments in advance.
Sincerely,
Aleksandar