Kingside pawn storm

conditions for a knigside pawn storm: 1) the center is closed 2) piece majority on the kingside

fen: r1b2r2/pp3pbk/2n1p1p1/q5Bp/3P3P/2P3P1/P2QNPB1/R4K1R w - - 2 15
id: DSWBZd4o

Instructive moment #1¶

we have it all in this position! closed center, the critical d5 square is inaccessible. (the square would let the knight defend and open up the LS bishop.)
so in this position all we want in life is to open up lines to the king. then the answer to the best move is clear: g4!

Instructive Moment #2¶

B responds f4! we reach the second critical instructive position: Do we sacrifice or not? In general i have the bad habit of thinking if we're attacking, we need to gogogogogo. sacrifice everything in order to open lines. But not all sacrifices were built equal! just because it's a sacrifice that opens a line, doesnt mean it's worth it if the line isnt that useful. sacrificing a piece means we have one less attacker: In this case, we currently have good control over the dark squares. and our DS bishop is very helpful.

I didn't want to retreat it because I assumed B could close up the kingside. But can they? in fact there's no way to stop us from taking on h5! and then there's no way to prevent us from taking again on g6. If gxh6 gxh6 then the light squares around B's king open up and the g file opens up! because we have more attackers on the kingside (and B has no counterplay at all on the queenside), it makes complete sense to retreat our bishop.

Instructive Moment #3¶

Lastly, where does our bishop go? on f4 they have the consolidating move d5 with tempo and we're super lost. So e3 is the only square. even thought it's just eyeing d4 atm, it more importantly is pointed towards the enemy king.

Instructive Moment #4¶

Be on the lookout for when we can convert our attack into a winning endgame. Often an attack will leave us with more active pieces (since the opponent spent so much tempo defending/running with their king), and it's therefore okay to trade into an endgame. Especially in the game below, it had evolved such that i was in just as much danger as him. So it's good in this position to trade queens in fact!

fen: r1b2r2/pp4bk/2n1p1p1/6PP/3P1q2/2P3N1/P2Q1PB1/R4K1R w - - 3 19
id: y4HuQx3k

hxg5 was the only move. i considiered it but didn't see the point. The point was simply that we are way better in the endgame due to our active pieces. B's bishop is terrible. B's knight cannot advance at all. The LS bishop is terrible.

We want to take first because then Kxg6 is unsafe since the queen can attack, so Kg8 is forced and we are up a pawn.