In today’s lesson, we are going to show you how to convert a slight advantage and slowly improve your position using the principle of two weaknesses.

First of all, what do we call a weakness?

Most of the times, this term is used to refer to our opponent’s pawn structure. It can be, for example, a backward pawn, an isolated pawn, doubled pawns, hanging pawns and so on. Besides these very common pawn weaknesses, there are also other types of weakness such as the control of an open file or a weak enemy piece.

Most of the times, a weakness in our opponent’s camp gives us a slight advantage, as our rival will find himself under constant pressure. However, he might be able to defend and, in order to convert our advantage, we will need to find another attacking front. This concept has been applied by chess masters in their games for a long time, but it was Grandmaster Aaron Nimzowitsch who formulated it in his famous book, “My system”.

To sum up, what we basically need to do after creating a weakness in our opponent’s camp is to first fix it an attack it, in order to force our rival into passivity. Afterwards, we should try to create a second weakness on the opposite flank. It is easier for the attacking side to put pressure on both targets than for the passive one to keep both defended. In the end, his position will simply fall apart.

Training Tasks

Task 1

White to move

Task 2

White to move

Task 3

White to move

Task 4

White to move

Task 5

White to move

Solutions:

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