Watch your six
.
.
.
The rook belongs behind the passed pawn, no wether it is our passed pawn or our opponents.
Seen from my point of view everything close to me is in front and everything far away is behind.
Seen from the point of view of my king one might argue that the front is far away and if he sends a pawn forward he sends them to the front so behind the front is close to the king while in front is far away.
If I must put a rook behind a passed pawn from my opponent is that that seen from my point of view, my king's, my opponent's or my opponent's king's?
As a computerprogrammer ambiguity in language is my enemy and I'm used to drive my future users mad with questions. Rules as the above are quite useless if you don't understand the why behind the rule. Although My System obscures the why behind the rules with poetic language, close reading usally reveals the why. That's the big plus of this book. In this case: the why is because the rook must be as active as possible. Now that's enough to figure out where my behind is.
I may have misunderstood your rhetorical musings about how confusing "front" is, but it should narrow it down to say that since any given pawn can travel in one direction only, then they have a face in that direction which is their front. Behind is the space the pawn is traveling away from.
ReplyDeleteSoap,
ReplyDeleteso you look from the viewpoint of the attacked or supported pawn.
Most people live in a simple world. I don't. For me nothing is sure or speaks for itself. The upside of that is that I always see new possibilities where others say it is impossible. The downside is that it is so darn time consuming That it takes a lifetime to learn some decent chess.
Good luck at Corus!!!
ReplyDeleteIt is with respect to the passed pawn. Think of it like this: the rook wants to have the option of going to adjacent files without being bothered by the pawn. The rook wants maximum mobility and therefore the pawn must be such that it is running away from the rook.
ReplyDeleteAs with all rules there are a lot of exceptions and that is the danger of "systems". Systems tend to lure the follower into thinking that they always apply. No they don't!
The usefulness of systems is that they help the beginner to learn some rules. The expert then knows to calculate to discover the exceptions and thus about the truth about the concrete position at hand.
* scratches his behind *
ReplyDeleteThat rule always confused me. But i guess the human body tells us enough what behind the pawn means. Face is forward, behind is behind. It's as easy as that to understand it for the rest of your live.
Well how are things going at Corus???
ReplyDeleteOne reason the rook should be behind the pawn: because with every move of the pawn the rook becomes more space. In front of that pawn, every pawnmove give the rook less space.
ReplyDelete