The Counter-Battle: Attack and Defence in Parallel

Coupled attacks, the four defensive classes running in parallel, and why central breaks decide most real middlegames. The concluding chapter of Znosko-Borovsky's The Middle Game in Chess.

"Every position in which both sides possess resources for attack is at bottom a counter-battle . Neither side can attack without defending; neither can defend without attacking. The middle game, in its fullest form, is this." — Znosko-Borovsky

The eight preceding chapters of Part Three trained one operation at a time. Manoeuvres were slow. Attack was direct. Defence was reactive. Each chapter presented its subject in something close to laboratory conditions — one side attacking, one side defending, the other set of resources held constant so the student could see the operation in isolation.

The counter-battle is what happens when the laboratory is put back into the world. Both sides have targets. Both sides have resources. Both sides are simultaneously conducting an attack and a defence, and — most importantly — the same pieces are doing both jobs at once. The bishop that defends g2 is the bishop that also aims at b7. The rook that holds the second rank is the rook that will swing to h3 the moment the second rank is safe. In the counter-battle the four defensive classes of Chapter 11 and the eleven attacking geometries of Chapter 10 apply simultaneously to different parts of the board.

This is the chapter for which everything up to it was preparation.

The temptation, when both sides have an attack, is to treat the position as two attacks running in parallel — mine on the K-side, his on the Q-side — and to reason about them separately. Znosko-Borovsky is emphatic that this is wrong.

In the counter-battle the two attacks are coupled . Every tempo I spend on my attack is a tempo he can spend on his. Every piece I commit forward is a piece not available for defence. Every pawn I push weakens two squares — one on his side of the board (which helps my attack) and one on mine (which helps his). The two attacks are joined at the tempo count, at the piece count, and at the pawn structure. They are one operation with two heads, not two operations.

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The Counter-Battle — The Middle Game in Chess, Ch. 12 | Endgame Society