u/GS1781

(Title)

I'm currently trying to delve more deeply into studying the Tartakower, but the majority of content (mostly YouTube videos) I've briefly covered either only explains kingside castling or simply says (quite vaguely) to "pawn storm" the queenside. My main issue is understanding how to handle my h5 pawn's weakness since it acts as a hook for my opponent's kingside pawns, given it no longer serves as strong of a purpose positionally when the White king is on the other side of the board.

For context, this is the position that is probably the most commonly reached move-order/position in both my games and master games that I assume are mostly blitzed out, although of course from this point onwards it branches out a lot more since I have no idea what I'm doing when all of my pieces are seemingly pointed the wrong direction LOL

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6+ exf6 6. c3 Bd6 7. Bd3 O-O 8.

Qc2 Re8+ 9. Ne2 h5 10. Be3 Nd7 11. O-O-O Nf8 12. Kb1 Be6 13. c4

https://preview.redd.it/aigcj076hijh1.png?width=758&format=png&auto=webp&s=a0a0f435381bbc7292ce13678e32ac53240dac1e

It seems that higher rated opponents in recent years will almost exclusively prefer queenside castling over kingside while playing as White, and attempt to wipe Black off the board as fast as possible, especially in blitz; given this, it almost seems too easy to do given the positioning of the rooks and pawns on the kingside. Most of my games won with Black are because my opponent misplayed a pawn push and allowed me to completely blockade the attack rather than needing to counterattack on the queenside, but I assume this is not really how most high-level games in this variation are meant to go.

As I'm writing this, I'm also going through some master games to see how they play the position out, but it would definitely help to get some good book recommendations to get some concrete theoretical knowledge on this. One of my main resources for a while as been Schandorff's "Playing the Caro-Kann", and he does seem to have a few games in the latter half of his chapter on the Tartakower dedicated to queenside castling, but doesn't really go into it that much. I think Johnson and Hansen's "Win with the Caro-Kann" doesn't even go into it at all. Both books are decent for other variations, though.

P.S., if anyone has any resources and/or model games on combatting an early b5 by White (it seems to be dubious most of the time since theoretically you should be able to undermine the center, but it has the appearance of being very aggressive in blitz and is harder to effectively counter there) in the Panov Attack and the Forgacs Variation in general, please also let me know :)

https://preview.redd.it/afflaoqh9dch1.png?width=782&format=png&auto=webp&s=5aa80925872eb04b78bfaf6d2210f31914ce0ef9

This (or positions similar to this, maybe with rook or minor pieces instead of queen) is probably one of the most common endgames I get with boring games that almost seem like neither of us is particularly trying to win... only for one of us to waste more time on making moves trying to squeeze something out of this position, especially if there's an extreme imbalance in ratings.

Just to give some imaginative scenarios, let's say you are playing in a 90+30 time control OTB classical tournament, where both you and your opponent are in this position in a time scramble, and let's say you're playing against:

1. A player somewhere around 500 points lower rated than you, who you know has way less endgame theory knowledge (say the level of a 1500-1600 FIDE) but has forcibly traded everything on purpose to try and get a draw as quickly as possible and knows that you are desperate for a win since it's the last round and a $5,000+ cash prize is on the line. Even though you for some reason let them achieve a bulk of their plan, you are still aiming to somehow get an initiative and prolong your winning chances for as long as possible without playing dubious moves.
2. A 2500-rated IM, who desperately needs a win to get their final GM norm and will never accept a draw until the 50-move rule occurs or the position is reduced down to K+Q vs K+Q. Theoretically, you just want to draw this game, since you don't think that the IM will make a serious blunder, but anything is still on the table if you so choose.

As someone who gets extremely stressed out and/or plays rashly in these types of positions, I'm interested to hear how others would evaluate this position. A few questions that are possible here:

• Where would you assume the king is best positioned in each scenario?
• What about the queen?
• Is there a fatal error that could be capitalized on that can be made by allowing certain pawn pushes, or by making bad pawn placements?
• Is there an ideal way to set up a fortress where any random series of moves could be made to draw?
• What would be different about the thought process if white's f2 pawn was on e4 instead, or if black's a7 pawn was on c6?

I recognize this might come off as a bit of an amateurish discussion and is overthinking something that objectively is completely drawn, but I think it's something that comes up enough OTB that it warrants at least some thought about it, and I'd be interested to hear what the different approaches to this are.