White sacrifices the c-pawn in the opening to create an imbalance of the pawn structure in the center.

This will give White attacking chances at the kingside as he has more space there and is able to chase the defending knight away. This creates the conditions for a long-term attack as Blacks forces are occupied at the other side of the board and are not able to protect the kingside on time.

Chess Imbalance

Advantages for White

1. The advanced e-pawn creates space advantage because it is more advanced than the black e-pawn.
2. Blacks kingside knight has been chased away and does not protect the black king anymore.
3. White can use the square e4 to penetrate with his knight deeply into Blacks position to d6. This paralyses the black forces.

Advantages for Black

1. He is ahead in material and is a pawn up.
2. He is strongly developed at the queenside and ready to proceed there.

Each side has to use what they have and proceed with their plans. The player who makes less mistakes will win.

Black has weakened his kingside playing the pawn move h5. This accelerates the attack of White and White wins. It is simple as that. Nonetheless deep tactical calculations are necessary all the time, so don’t miscalculate any variations.

Flip Board: Press F-Key (or click e7 or d2 on top)

Bishop is on e7 now instead of g7

The same opening is played in the game below, but the black bishop protects d6, so the white knight cannot go there to paralyze the black pieces. Nonetheless White is playing to get control in the center and switch to a kingside attack later on.

Understand that it is important to keep the black bishop inactive on b7. So make sure a black c-pawn stays on c6 to block the black bishop from coming out.

This means you have to control c5 and stop Black from pushing the c-pawn to c5 because then the diagonal of the bishop b7 would open up and this bishop would begin to become active along the diagonal a8-h1.

Replay Game – Imbalance

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