Stonewall — The cause of an avalanche
The most vicious and solid setup for both white and black.
By the term stonewall there certainly must be an image about a kind of barrier coming to your mind. Well, in chess a stonewall is basically a massive pawn chain which can be used to demolish the opponent’s position. These ideas are often used in semi open games where the central pawns are placed on light and dark squares such as c3, d4 ,e3 and f4 (c6 , d5,e6 and f5 for black). It is a highly dangerous repertoire with the opponent’s pieces quickly demoralized and buried in avalanche.
One of the most common stonewall openings in chess is the Dutch stonewall, where black creates a similar pawn structure and then tries to obliterate white on the kingside. Often it is not easy to execute such an attack, although it might be certainly easier to build it. The idea of the stonewall emphasizes on restricting the opponent’s pieces in simple terms.
In the Dutch, black, against the move 1.d4, plays the move f5. With this aggressive move black aims for the e4 square. His main idea is to gain control of e4 with the moves f5 and d5. Although it might seem that black is playing nonsense, opening up his kingside and making his king more vulnerable, black actually is trying to create a stonewall structure by placing his pawns on light squares, thus creating a strong pawn chain in the centre and also gaining more space on the centre of the board. This opening is very successful in top level chess and it has been employed by many strong chess players such as Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen.
There are many different variations of the Dutch, but the most solid one is the stonewall variation. Black creates an impressive pawn chain in the Centre of the board to restrict White’s pieces from coming into play and then puts his nose to the grindstone to destroy the white king.
There are many famous Dutch stonewall games throughout chess history but the most famous of them all is Flohr vs Botvinnik (according to me) which was played in 1933 in Moscow.
1.d4 e6 2.c4 f5 3.g3 Nf6 4.Bg2 Be7. 5 Nc3 d5. The players have transposed to the stonewall variation. Black’s key idea is to block the light squared bishop which is beautifully placed on g2 x raying the long diagonal. 6.Nf3 c6. Now black has established a powerful pawn chain, with the moves e6,f5,d5. 7.0–0 0–0 .8.b3 Qe8! Wonderful attacking technique! Black wants to shift his queen to h5, play Ne4 and blast open the kingside with f4. 9Bb2 Nbd7 10.Qd3 Qh5! The point! 11 .cxd5 exd5! The reason is that black wants to free up his light squared bishop which is stuck miserably behind the stonewall. 12.Nd2 Ne4! A really ghastly move. Intending to set up fire on the kingside. Obviously white can’t take the knight because black would then recapture with the f pawn, opening up the f file and then carry out the vicious attack with optimal fury. But then how to kick this destructive knight out? 13.f3 Perhaps the only way out, or not? One would probably expect the knight to sacrifice itself at g3 but Botvinnik had something else in his ravenous mind. 13.Nxc3! 14.Bxc3 White has got rid of the knight at e4 but has allowed black the main idea.. f4! 15.Rfe1! A very clever defensive idea, white wants to play Nf1 followed by the advance of the e pawn, then Re2 and finally play Be1 to help with the defense of g3..Bd6 16.Nf1 Rf7 , 17 e3 fxg3 18.Nxg3 Qh4 19.Nf1 Nf6! Black is slowly developing his remaining pieces to directly dive in for the kill! 20.Re2 Bd7 21 Be1 Qg5! Eyeing the white king. 22.Bg3 Bxg3 23.Nxg3. White could also take with the pawn but after Nh5 kf2 Raf8 black is sure to prevail. 23.h5! with the simple idea of h4-h3. 24 f4 Qg4. obviously black wants to keep his queen on the g file to carry on the previous plan of h4 — h3. 25 Rf2 the only move. All other moves lose for eg 25. Kh1 h4 26.Nf1 h3 and the bishop is trapped. 25 Kf1 also leads to the same variation. 25.h4 26.Bf3! Practically the only chance for salvation. Flohr must have imagined Botvinnik to retreat with his queen but I would not have recommended this game if it were to end on such an abrupt note… 26.hxg3! Black has left the queen hanging but notice that the rook on f2 is also under attack by the pawn. 27.Bxg4 gxf2+ 28.Kg2 Nxg4 29.h3 Nf6 30 Kxf2 Ne4+ and white resigned. Black has one knight, one bishop and a rook for the white queen. Secondly black’s spectacular knight check completely blocked out the queen. The game might have continued as 31.kg2 g5! 32 fxg5 Rf2+ Kg1 and Bxh3.
White can also achieve a similar stonewall set up with the same but slightly different move order. Instead of playing f4 directly on the first move, white plays d4 ,e3 ,Bd3,Nd2 and then f4.this type of setup is known as the stonewall attack. It can arise from a variety of move orders like c3,d4,Bd3,e3 and f4. But the most straightforward way is with d4 e3 bd3 and f4. This opening is a very popular amongst club players.
White’s idea in the stonewall attack is very similar compared to the dutch. White launches a pawn storm on the kingside to devastate the black king.
I would like to show one game to demonstrate this.
Joost van Ruitenburg vs Hans Hofstra HZ open (2001) Vlissingen round 9.
1.d4 d5 2.e3 White’s idea behind this move is to play Bd3 c3 and f4, converting to the stonewall attack. Nf6 3.Bd3 e6 f4! The stonewall attack! 4.c5 gaining more space on the queenside. 5.c3 Nc6. 6.Nf3 Bd6 7.Ne5! The trademark move of the stonewall! Either white has to capture the knight and open up the f file for a vicious attack, or let that knight remain there putting a major clamp on the kingside. 7.Ne7 8.Nbd2 Both players develop naturally. Qb6! A very strong move eyeing the lethal a7-g1 diagonal 9.0–0 Bd7 Black’s king hasn’t castled yet. So he wants to confuse white with his move, not exactly revealing to white where he is gonna castle. 10.a4! Energetically pushing on the queenside. Black is forced to castle short. 0–0 11. g4! An amazing idea! White again switches to the kingside. Bc6 12.Qf3 Ng6! The whole point behind Ne7! 13.g5 Bxe5 14 fxe5 Nd7 15.Qh5! It seems that white’s attack has perished and it is black who will dominate white on the other side of the board, but one move completely devastates the black position.Re8 16 Rf3! White wants to shift the rook to h3 and create a devastating attack on h7.16.a5 black just waits until his Pacifying death. 17.Rh3! Ndf8 The only resource. Ngf8 is met by Bxh7+. 18.Nf3! cxd4 19 exd4 Bxa4? Perhaps black wanted to humor white with this strange looking move 20 Nh4!! An exceptionally brilliant response, one would just capture the bishop on a4 with the rook, but, in this position white’s focus is completely on the kingside and he is all set for a do-or die kingside attack! 20.Bd7 21.b3!! Another masterpiece! White wants to place his bishop on a3 where it will target black’s key defender on f8, and also cut off the king from escaping via f8 just in case in knight moves. a4? Black perhaps had to play Ne7 after which the game would have lasted just a bit longer with g6. 22.Nxg6! fxg6 23.Bxg6!! Completely destroying the black kingside! 23.hxg6. Nxg6 will be met by Qxh7.+ 24.Qh8+ Kf7 25.Ba3! Nf7 perhaps the only move left for salvation. Re8 loses to Rf1+. 26.Rf1+ nevertheless white plays this check. Nf6 and now? 27.Rxf6+ gxf6 28. Rh7#.
So these two games showed the devastating power of the stonewall. It is an excellent opening choice if you are an aggressive chess player and like to play for a kingside attack in any adverse position. and if you are a passive player, then too the stonewall can prove a major surprise weapon for your opponents!
