Question about stonewall.

[gerold]

Pablo or anyone who has played the stonewall a lot.
Results vs.computer and results vs.human.
Which is easier to draw using stonewall.

I may be wrong but i think Ray used the stonewall a lot
in his over the board play.

Best,

Gerold.

[MattieShoes]

I suck at chess, but I know weaker engines often misplay stonewall, to the point where some engines have specific eval code to handle it.

[d]8/8/2p5/3p4/2PP4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1

Comps tend to play c5 in situations like this, which is apparently bad

[M ANSARI]

I use the stonewall quite a bit in computer and human games. It is amazing how even very strong players can misplay the stonewall at fast time control games. It can be a devastating attacking opening if black does not handle it properly. I usually start with d4 then f4, the idea is to mass pawns in the center and block the position. Black usually reacts by attacking queenside, but that can quickly backfire as white can patiently rebuff black's queenside attack and do an attack of his own on black's kingside. Since black pieces are overextended on the queenside, white can push a devastating attack on the kingside.

I use this opening a lot against computers, and I had excellent success up till Shredder 9 and Pentium 4 computers. With Rybka the system I used fails miserably as Rybka simply does not make silly mistakes older engines with weak hardware used to. But I still manage to win some nice games with it against my Pocket PC. I will see if I can pull out some games to post.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

I didn't know that you're a stonewaller Majd,I am surprised to say the least
It would be interesting to see some of your games as I use some kind of stonewall techniques playing the Bird's defence 1.f4
Dr.D

[M ANSARI]

Yes I do quite a bit. This started out some time back as a way to punish people who use their computers for help. You can very quickly get a winning position with someone using computer for help and you can play the opening fast while the computer takes quite a while to figure things out. In fast 1 0 and 3 0 games the person using a computer for help will find that with very little time left he does not have his won game and will start blitzing his moves by himself and obviously lose. I realized then that the stonewall has some very creative ideas and is great to use against very strong tactical players. Usually such players are looking for sacrificial attacks and will not play "boring" solid moves and instead look for an attack that simply is not there. With d4 and f4 an aggressive black player will either castle queenside or mount a queenside attack while castled kingside ... both backfire badly.

I remember that Shredder was notorious for castling queenside and would get clobbered very quickly after white plays a4 and b4. I will try to look up some games.

[AdminX]

Yes I do quite a bit. This started out some time back as a way to punish people who use their computers for help. You can very quickly get a winning position with someone using computer for help and you can play the opening fast while the computer takes quite a while to figure things out. In fast 1 0 and 3 0 games the person using a computer for help will find that with very little time left he does not have his won game and will start blitzing his moves by himself and obviously lose. I realized then that the stonewall has some very creative ideas and is great to use against very strong tactical players. Usually such players are looking for sacrificial attacks and will not play "boring" solid moves and instead look for an attack that simply is not there. With d4 and f4 an aggressive black player will either castle queenside or mount a queenside attack while castled kingside ... both backfire badly.

I remember that Shredder was notorious for castling queenside and would get clobbered very quickly after white plays a4 and b4. I will try to look up some games.

Now Majd,

That is a very smart piece of advice! Dare I say brilliant even. I never thought of that, then again I blacklist all cheats that I come across.

[gerold]

Yes I do quite a bit. This started out some time back as a way to punish people who use their computers for help. You can very quickly get a winning position with someone using computer for help and you can play the opening fast while the computer takes quite a while to figure things out. In fast 1 0 and 3 0 games the person using a computer for help will find that with very little time left he does not have his won game and will start blitzing his moves by himself and obviously lose. I realized then that the stonewall has some very creative ideas and is great to use against very strong tactical players. Usually such players are looking for sacrificial attacks and will not play "boring" solid moves and instead look for an attack that simply is not there. With d4 and f4 an aggressive black player will either castle queenside or mount a queenside attack while castled kingside ... both backfire badly.

I remember that Shredder was notorious for castling queenside and would get clobbered very quickly after white plays a4 and b4. I will try to look up some games.

Thanks for the info. Interesting. Yes i would like to see some of
the games with the attack you mention.

Best to you,

Gerold.

[swami]

I use the stonewall quite a bit in computer and human games. It is amazing how even very strong players can misplay the stonewall at fast time control games. It can be a devastating attacking opening if black does not handle it properly. I usually start with d4 then f4, the idea is to mass pawns in the center and block the position. Black usually reacts by attacking queenside, but that can quickly backfire as white can patiently rebuff black's queenside attack and do an attack of his own on black's kingside. Since black pieces are overextended on the queenside, white can push a devastating attack on the kingside.

That's not surprising. Kings Indian Defense is the best defense against the stonewall. I used to play stonewall and of all openings, I had a difficult time facing Kings Indian. If you know of any good lines against this specific defense, please do let me know.

Yacov Norowitz always play stonewall at playchess. He is rated 2800-3000 at blitz/bullet. Do watch his games, his set up is interesting.