Anyone ever tried the stonewall defense?
Stonewall Attack - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

any thoughts on it?

I've tried it, but don't like to have a pawn on c6, which is more or less the cause of black's passivity (and the wall's cornerstone). I've pirated around a lot in the Dutch, f5-e6-d5, f5-e6-d5-c5 and f5-e6-d5-b6-d6 were the formations that worked best for me, I gave it up as my primary defense a good while ago.

Actually this is the Stonewall Attack. Black has a similar set up in the Dutch Defense-Stonewall Variation that was a favorite of Botvinnik.

In my early years I read a book by Horowitz in which he recommended playing the Stonewall Attack and had disastrous results. First of all, as frequently happens, Horowitz did not give the best defensive lines for Black and most of my opponents refused to play as badly as the examples in the book. Also White’s whole plan goes down the drain if Black fianchettoes his f8B.

You may wonder why this set up is satisfactory for Black but not White. The reason is opening goals for White and Black are not the same. White is trying to obtain more than just equality in the opening and reversed openings, even with the extra tempo, often don’t yield more than equality at best. GM Malaniuk often plays the Leningrad Dutch. So why doesn’t he play the Bird (1.f4) as White? He observed, “That extra move is going to hurt me.” The reasons for this observation may not be clear to us rating challenged people, but if world class GM’s advise against it, then I think we should listen.

All said, I think if you play it you’ll find it doesn’t work out very good if you’re playing halfway decent opponents.

Can anyone give us examples of good balck's defense?
I had problems with it with black

You could Check in the Chess Games anylisis

where is that?

I read Stonewall Defense and didn't look further.

The Stonewall Attack is something timid I like to easily knock down with my 'two knights' system. It's one of those instant-noodles openings that don't require thinking for white, which is why black can react the same as against the Colle, London and all those things.. I agree that having made 1. f4 for white at the first move is actually a bad thing, similarly, 1. c4 being a move up is not helpful for reversed Sicilian types.

Looking up my black stuff against the Stonewall Attack, I don't see it often anymore; I used to have different moves and move orders. I have some more I do believe, including a bunch of notes, here's part of a game that I used for reference:
1. d4 Nf6 2. e3 g6 3. Bd3 d5 4. Nd2 Bg7 5. f4 Nbd7 6. Nf3 c5 7. c3 0-0 8. 0-0 Ne8 9. Ne5 Qc7 10. Qf3 e6 11. Qh3 Nxe5 12. fxe5 f6 13. exf6 Nxf6 14. Qh4 e5

Here's an old usenet newsgroup post by "Mig" - an internet chess journalist, which should give you some basic ideas. THis is not a good opening for white. Weak players will win games with it against grossly unprepared opponents, but once people understand the basic principles involved, you'll be the one losing a lot of games.

Dear me, the immediate f5 line is about as entertaining as watching grass grow. People used to do that to me in a Dutch move order (1. d4 f5 2. f4) and annoy me half to death before I'd get my draw/win. I usually have this formation in mind when someone plays a weak opening like the SWA:



Which you can set up at anytime against most openings known to mankind, I'm not a great fan of the g6-Bg7 plan myself but it's been one of my lines.

Actually, why would white play 13. exf6: according to Fritz 8 Bb5 is the best move. followed by cd4 ed4 Bd7 Bxd7 Qxd7 Fxe5 Rxf8+ Kf8 exd4 Qxh7 with advantage to white 0.70. You might wish to run your analysis through an engine. Your move order is faulty.