Doubled isolated pawns - Please help!

Originally posted by Joan34
SwissGambit, a question I'm asking myself is: was 36. ... Nxd4 sound?

It seems from the game that black can get at least a draw out of it. Can he win though? If he avoids exchanging the a pawns and goes for the kingside, does black have a chance?

I guess the other question that comes to mind is: does he have a better plan? After all black's knight look ...[text shortened]... empting...).

Thanks for the time you spent on this.

Logging off for the weekend

J34

Good question.

I think Black has some slight winning chances thanks to the locked pawn structure, which favors the N generally. However, it is difficult to say if he can really win. The N would love to be on b5 right about now, but ...Ng7-e8 is met by Bd8, denying the use of c7.

I'm not sure how exactly Black would 'go for the Kingside'. White doesn't seem to have any weaknesses there, so Black would endeavor to create one. At the same time, he must stop White from locking the pawns in a way that deny entry points to the N [if White established a locked P on g4, for example, with bNg7, then Black's chances on the Kingside are nullfied].

I'm afraid 36...Nxd4 did nothing but throw away those slight winning chances. Black cannot break White's blockade of the two passed pawns. He can only hope that White gets greedy and takes a foolish risk trying to win.