Pawns
The previous post showed a holistic view of the chess game. I knew for long that I needed one, but was always too easy overwhelmed or distracted to concoct one. But since my tactical prowess is on the rise, I feel more confident to trust on my own conclusions.
The reason for a holistic logical framework is that it is a way to get feedback from my games. It is no problem how primitive or ridiculous or simplistic such framework currently is, since it is adjusted on the fly after every game. It is not supposed to be rigid, is is flexible by design.
There are three directions you can follow in a game.
- Go for the King (Vukovic)
- Go for the pawns (Nimzowitsch)
- Go for the endgame (Arkell)
Go for the King
The PoPLoAFun system offers a good guide in this area. The nec plus ultra for the assault on the king is piece activity. The pawns form a LoA landscape. The squares around the king are the focal points (PoPs). The battle is for the domination of the lines of attack.
Chessable courses:
All by CM Can Kabadayi
In the assault of the king is a clear decision moment. The moment before the preconditions of the attack are met and after that moment.
Before that moment, you must try to keep all three options open. When all preconditions are met, you can commit yourself to the attack. Usually that commitment shows itself by a committal pawn move that rules out the Nimzowitsch option (attack the pawns) and the Arkell option (convert to and ending).
Go for the pawns
To get the juices flowing
To get the juices flowing
The attack of the pawns must be worked out. Nimzowitsch describes a way to block or restraint the enemy pawn chain and to attack the chain from the base, thus encircling and weakening the pawn at the base. With options to blockade the pawns with pieces. I have no clear picture jet, but at least I know where to start. A pawn base is usually to be undermined with a pawn attack of your own.
Go for the endgame
GM Arkell chooses his openings based on the pawn structure. His positional play is governed by the pawns. He tries to trade most pieces without doing concessions to the pawn structure. This way he mostly plays risk free. He tries to get two attacks going, a minority attack on the queenside and a g-pawn push on the kingside.
Given the three options, I guess that pawn moves are the most difficult moves to master. At the same time, under positional pawn moves you probably will find the most multi purpose moves which can get you an advantage.
Can Kabadi his written another book The Art of Exchanging pieces
That seems to be a good weapon to get your positional things done. The pawns create the LoA landscape, and the LoA landscape tells you which pieces are promising and which pieces you won't miss.
There are a lot of memes out there which put you on the wrong foot. "To take is a mistake" of GM Smirnov. What lacks is the nuance. Exchanges are already my main weapon of choice. “Modern Chess is too much concerned with things like Pawn structure. Forget it, Checkmate ends the game.” by Nigel Short. That kind of rules are oversimplified in order to make a point that sticks. But since these rules tends to suppress thinking by yourself, they do more harm than good.
ReplyDeleteThese memes are not wrong, but they lack context and nuance. When I'm left on my own behind the board during a game, I need context and nuance.
This post is intended to make a start with building a positional decision making framework based on pawn moves. One of the first questions that must be addressed is "when to move a pawn and when to move a piece?". In order to answer that question, you need to know how the three options that are provided in this post play a role in your current game.
I need a system for that.
The amount of middlegame scenarios is definitely finite. If you want to grind an opponent down in an endgame of 80 moves, you need to know these scenarios by heart. Since there is not so much time per move.
ReplyDeleteThe series of books of Kabadayi provide a few hundred exercises for the most common middlegame scenarios which lend themselves for my training method.
ReplyDeleteArkell provides a few hundred exercises that are related to endgame strategy.
I only need digital exercises for the scenarios of My System.
The essence of chess is to think about the essence of chess. --- David Bronstein
ReplyDeleteI play the weaknesses: use-make them at the opponent side, prevent them at my side. But.. I'm a weak player.
ReplyDeleteA holistic view is probably not everybody's cup of thea. But I worked 23 year frantically to unearth a method to acquire skill, disciplined and consciously neglecting all other parts of the game. Now I have a tool to slowly acquire skill, I need to think about which other parts of the game would benefit the most from acquiring skills.
ReplyDeleteI already ruled out the openings, since OTB play (about 100 games per year) provides the best feedback for that.
A holistic view in itself is not going to be useful for practical play anytime soon. But it identified a few different areas of the game 1.Attack on the king before 2 attack on the king after (the preconditions are met) 3. Nimzowitsch' System 4.Overall middlegame technique (like when to exchange) 5.endgame strategy.
1, 2 and 4 are taken care of by my training I already do daily. 3. Need a lot of investigation AND lacks a digital problem set.
So for now the conclusion must be that studying endgame strategy AND acquiring the related skills is probably the fastest way forward. Endgames give direction to the openings AND the middlegames.
In looking at a book by Gulko where he talks about his games. He spoke about playing a young opponent. His strategy was to trade down quickly and get to the endgame. His reasoning is that younger players have the edge in calculation and older ones have the edge in endgames which rely more on experience than creative thinking.
ReplyDeletehttps://lichess.org/study/yrB8rqjJ
ReplyDelete