Weakness in the Stonewall setup?

Question

In the following setup of Stonewall Attack:

[FEN ""]
1. c3 null 2. d4 null 3. e3 null 4. f4 null 5. Bd3

Wouldn't that make the king vulnerable to diagonal attacks from a bishop or a queen? If yes, what variation of the opening may be used to counter this problem? If no, how? Thanks!

Answer 1

I used to play such as white before I got educated...

Well, it is not that bad and on the plus you don't need to learn much or any theory.

There are two possible responses from black which I found quite unpleasant to play this against.

1. If black does not play an early d5, he has the option for a King's Indian setup where you play d6 and e5. So black is directly fighting you on the dark squares. IMO the stonewall is almost unplayable in this case.
2. If black uses a standard setup with d5 and develops the bishop to f5 quickly, you end up with weak light squares and a bad dark squared bishop. Exchanging the light square bishop on d3 is not something you really want either. Black would typically put pawns on c5, d5, e6, the bishop to f5 and just develop normally.

Because of this you should stay flexible and consider other options depending on what black does. Two popular plans involve fianchetto of either bishop.

With the kingside fianchetto (g3, Bg2) you could go for a King's Indian Attack with early f4. Here you would want to play d3 and e4 eventually.