Re: Curtains vs PoG
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Exchanging on g2 gains us nothing??? I understand that we don't in general want to trade down in these situations, but his bishop on g2 is a candidate for best piece on the board. And as I'm sure you know, having moved the g-pawn is nothing but a weakness in the castled position once the fianchettoed bishop is gone. And creating weaknesses to attack is very much in our interest with the isolated pawn
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In the current position, the light squared bishops are essentially a wash - he is using his to attack the d-pawn, and we likely need ours to defend the d-pawn (usually from e6). The difference is that our plan is deal with our d-pawn by advancing it some day, at which time our bishop should be placed on e6 to attack both sides of the board, while at the same time ensuring that his bishop isn't going to be hitting anything but air on the long diagonal. Basically, his bishop has defined it's role right now, while ours still has a variety of options open that we might want to consider doing. As well, playing Bf5-e4-g2 is further loss of time; basically think of it this way: we are going to take our Bishop on c8 and take it off the board. In exchange for that, he gets to put his knight on d4 and castle. Definitely a major loss of time for us - we certainly don't get enough compensation in the way of having the light squared B's off the board.
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having moved the g-pawn is nothing but a weakness in the castled position once the fianchettoed bishop is gone.
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The main weak squares of a castled kingside fianchetto with no bishop are the squares h3 and f3 (assuming white). With his pawn still on e2, f3 is not a weakness. h3 is far from an exploitable weakness in this position. The tradeoff is that in such positions, the player with the isolated pawn (in this case, us), often tries to work up an attack based on the b8-h2 diagonal, which isn't possible here.
That all said, I will say that Bf5 Nd4 Be4 0-0 Bxg2 Kxg2 is an option. This is a more passive defensive course of action, where he will have the dpawn securely blockaded, and we will have very little initiative of any sort.
The more aggressive option is to play Bc5 and other supporting moves and attempt to get in d4 as soon as possible to try and get some space edge. If we can maintain it (or better, force him to play e2-e3 to liquidate it), we may be able to get some decent chances.
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