Pawn Structures

Fischer – Petrosian, Buenos Aires 1971. Look at Black's pawn on d5. Black has no pawn on the c-file and none on the e-file, so no pawn can ever protect it. That is an isolated queen's pawn. For the side that has it, the pawn brings space, and its pieces get the open files next to it and the squares it guards, here c4 and e4. This activity is only worth something while many pieces are on the board, so the owner keeps the pieces and attacks. The other side does the opposite. First, blockade: put a piece on the square in front of the pawn, here d4, where no black pawn can ever attack it. Second, trade pieces: with each trade the pawn's owner has less activity, and in the end the pawn is only a weakness that ties Black's pieces to its defence until it is lost. In this game the queens are already off the board, so Black has the weakness without the attack.

Black's dark-squared bishop guards the squares around the isolated pawn. Offer to trade it off.

♗︎c5 offers the trade, and after ♖︎fe8, ♗︎xe7, ♖︎xe7 the bishop that guarded Black's dark squares is gone. Two things follow. White's knight can settle on c5, a dark square that Black's last bishop can never touch. And that last bishop, on e6, is blocked by its own pawn on d5, so it defends and does nothing else. Fischer traded one more pair of pieces, brought his rooks in along the open files and won the game.

Fischer – Bolbochan, Stockholm 1962. Black's pawn on d6 is a backward pawn. The e-pawn next to it has gone ahead to e5 and Black has no c-pawn, so no pawn can protect it. It cannot move forward either, because White controls d5. It also stands on a file where White has no pawn, so White's queen and rook are lined up against it. The square in front of it, d5, is a hole: a square that no black pawn can ever guard. The side with the backward pawn wants to push it and trade it off, or at least to cover the hole with pieces. The other side wants to put a piece in the hole, best of all a knight, because no pawn can drive it away. So count the black pieces that can still fight for d5. The bishop on e7 moves on dark squares, and d5 is a light square. Black's other bishop has already been traded. That leaves one piece: the knight on b6.

One black piece can still fight for the hole. Remove it.

♗︎xb6 gives up the bishop for the one piece that could fight for d5. After ♕︎xb6, ♘︎d5 the knight lands in the hole and attacks the queen. No pawn can drive it away, and Black has no knight and no light-squared bishop left to trade for it, so it stays there. It is far stronger than the bishop on e7, which is shut in behind its own pawns on d6 and e5. Material is equal, but White has a large advantage, and Fischer won the game.

Fischer – Spassky, World Championship 1972, game 6. Black's pawns on c5 and d5 are hanging pawns: two pawns side by side on the c- and d-files, with no pawn on the b-file or the e-file to support them and no white pawn in front of them. For the side that has them, they control four squares in a row, b4, c4, d4 and e4, and give the pieces space. The owner keeps pieces on the board and waits for the moment to push one pawn, which opens lines for an attack or makes a passed pawn. The other side knows that only pieces can defend these pawns. So it attacks them with pieces and tries to make one of them step forward. Then the pawn left behind is backward, and the square in front of it is a place for a blockade. Here White's queen and rook already attack c5, and Black's queen, knight and rook all defend it. The pawn on d5 has only one defender, the bishop on e6.

The d5-pawn has one defender. Go after that defender, and look at what stands behind the c5-pawn before you choose the square.

♘︎d4 attacks the bishop on e6, the only defender of d5, and the c5-pawn cannot take the knight. The pawn stands between White's queen on a3 and Black's queen on e7: if it captures, White's queen takes the black queen and White is a queen for a knight ahead. Black moved the queen to f8, and Fischer traded knight for bishop on e6. Then he attacked d5 with his e-pawn and made the pawn step forward to d4. His bishop went to c4, the square in front of the pawn left behind, and the hanging pawns never moved again. Fischer won with an attack on the king.

Karpov – Van der Wiel, Brussels 1987. The centre is locked by two pawn chains. A pawn chain is a diagonal line of pawns in which each pawn protects the one in front of it. White's chain runs from g2 up to d5, and Black's runs from c7 up to f4. The front pawns of a chain are all protected by a pawn. The pawn at the back, the base, is not, so a chain is attacked from behind. You use a pawn break, a pawn push that attacks an enemy pawn, as close to the base as you can reach. A chain also tells you where to play. It points to one side of the board, and there you have more space. White's chain points to the queenside and Black's to the kingside. Where should White strike?

Lasker – Capablanca, St Petersburg 1914. This position shows two structures at once. Black's pawns on c7 and c6 are doubled pawns: two pawns of one colour on the same file. They appeared when White traded a bishop for the knight on c6 and Black took back with the d-pawn. Each side also has a pawn majority, which means more pawns than the opponent on one side of the board. White has four pawns against three on the kingside, and Black has four against three on the queenside. A majority is there to make a passed pawn: a pawn that no enemy pawn can stop any more, so that it can run to the last rank and become a queen. The queens are already off the board. Which side can make a passed pawn with pawn moves alone?

Count the pawns on each side of the board. Your extra pawn is in the centre: set that majority in motion.

The e-pawn steps to e4 and the majority starts to roll. Botvinnik – Capablanca, AVRO 1938: Black has three pawns against two on the queenside and is about to win the pawn on a4. White has five pawns against four from the d-file to the h-file, and the extra one is the e-pawn, which has no black pawn in front of it. Botvinnik let the a-pawn go. After ♕︎xa4 he pushed the e-pawn again and brought the f-pawn up beside it. Eight moves later a white pawn stood on e6, passed and two steps from becoming a queen.

The same game nine moves later. The majority has done its work: the pawn on e6 is a passed pawn, because no black pawn stands in front of it or can capture it on its way. Black is a pawn up, and it does not help. Black's queen and one knight are far away on the queenside, where they won that pawn, and only the king and the other knight are left to stop the pawn on e6. Botvinnik broke through that guard with a sacrifice, the pawn reached e7, and Capablanca resigned because he could not stop it from becoming a queen. This is how to use a majority: count the pawns on each side of the board, find the side where you have more, and advance those pawns until one is passed. Do it before your opponent's majority does the same.