Weak pawns

In the previous lessons we have seen how we can take advantage of some positional characteristics of a chess position. Based on these lessons we try to locate undefended pieces, pieces that are placed on the same file, line or diagonal or an unsavely positioned king. This may enable us to find a nice combination.
But the positional characteristics of a chess position aren’t limited to this kind of combination related placements. This lesson is about another positional characteristic: the weak pawn.

A pawn is weak if

• the pawn can not be defended by a pawn
• and the pawn can be attacked

But there are different levels of weakness and a pawn becomes very weak if he is unable to move. This is one of the reasons that doubled pawns are rather weak. The back pawn is often unable to move. The front pawn is often hard to defend (by a rook).

Two adjacent pawns on for example c4 and d4 are called hanging pawns. They are not really weak, because they both have the ability to get protection from the other pawn by advancing. However this will make the other pawn weaker.

Regarding the position in the diagram both White and Black seem to have a lot of weak pawns, because they are all isolated and can not be defended by another pawn.

After looking more carefully we notice that almost all of White’s pawns can not be attacked by Black’s bishop, while White’s knight will still be able to attack all the pawns of Black.

White will even be able to create a passed pawn by playing 32.g5 hxg5 33.Nxg5.

 
If you you enjoyed this lesson about weak pawns you are probably also interested in other elements of chess strategy.

Tags: Chess, Strategy