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“Pawns … are the soul of chess.” — Francois Danican PHILIDOR “The most important feature of the chess position is the activity of the pieces. This is absolutely fundamental in all phases of the game (opening, middlegame and especially endgame). The primary constraint on a piece’s activity is the Pawn structure.” — Michael STEAN The…
…and other Queen’s-side openings As White, you often have a choice of going for a big advantage in a risky position, or going for a safe small advantage. Here are the sorts of advantage you can seek in the Queen’s Gambit. Better development White has got their pieces to better squares and can attack wherever…
A nice easy one: having more pawns than your opponent on one side (and an open file there too, otherwise we have the half-open files setting for a minority attack) Capablanca shows Marshall that a working majority is enough to win the game: you create a passed pawn. A working King’s-side majority can produce an…
King safety is the most important thing on the chessboard — ignore it and you will get mated! Kings are unsafe if they are stuck: uncastled in the centre (Wojciechowski-Weiss, Alekhin-Nimzowitsch) castled but exposed or in a weakened position (Liubarski-Soultanbieff) castled but outnumbered (Kasparov-Marjanovic) Ian Nepomniachtchi’s success in the 2022 Candidate’s Tournament was marked by…
The rules for playing against an IQP are logically the opposite of how you should play with an IQP:
