isolated pawn - tag

How do you get better at playing middlegames? There is no simple answer; it has to be a complex study. To improve your middlegame play, you should work on your tactics, calculation, positional understanding, planning, and many other things. If there are any shortcuts, it is probably to study typical pawn structures.

Pawn breaks are powerful tools that can change completely the character of a position. Generally, they are known to be freeing moves that help improve our position and are meant to create problems in our opponent’s – weaknesses, dangerous open files, etc. In positions with the isolated queen’s pawn specifically, the typical break that we […]

Positions with the isolated pawn are often misunderstood, which many times leads to the fear of playing this type of position. The common concept is that the isolated pawn is a weakness (and it is!) and we know that we should avoid creating weaknesses in our position. This general idea is correct, but there are […]

The isolated pawn is a very common middlegame theme. Thus, it is very important to know the strategy for playing with and against it. In my previous article, I’ve covered the general ideas of playing with the isolated pawn, if you missed it, you can always review it here. The importance of this topic is […]

In modern chess theory, an isolated pawn is a common and very important positional theme. The side playing with an isolated pawn typically tries utilizing spatial or developmental advantage in exchange for the pawn’s weakness. By accepting the position with an isolated pawn, a player expects to employ the position dynamics for starting a quick […]