The second duck
My two sitting ducks were the result of a mainly complete theoretical exercise. Plans can be based only on slow moving pieces. Since fast moving pieces are too agile. They defy every attempt to corner them by just moving away. You can only trap them by accident, when they act rather stupid.
This means that only the king (first duck) and the pawns (second duck) are slow enough to be chased. Hence positional plans can only be based on the king and the pawns in the first place.
The protection of the king and the pawns create obligations for the other pieces. Those obligations (functions) tend to slow down those defenders.
So tactics can be based on the king, the pawns or the slowed down defenders. Maybe we should call defenders the third duck.
The tactical exercises we see on sites like ChessTempo are mates (first duck), gain of wood (third duck), or stupid accidents (traps and blunders).
What is lacking are tactics that are related to pawns (second duck).
The main reason for inventing the sitting ducks in the first place, is to find a way to prune the tree of positional scenarios. If you can limit your positional ideas to the ducks and their derivatives, you can prune the tree of thoughts accordingly.
So far this idea has been mainly a theoretical exercise, based on logic and intuition.
But with his comments on the last post, Robert has taken this to the next level.
With his roadmap to the endgame, he showed that endgames are based on pawn play. GM Arkell already said so, but all of a sudden it makes completely sense.
With his schematic representation of My System, Robert showed that pawn play is not only limited to the endgame, but extends to the middlegame too. I already suspected that of course, but he showed it in a striking way.
I already knew that the judgement of an endgame was based on the underlying pawn ending. So I want to have another look at this position from the previous post.
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| White to move |
6k1/p5p1/2p5/5p2/3p2P1/P2P1P1p/1P2K2P/8 w - f6 0 34
Thank you, but I just stumbled across the message; I am merely the messenger. The message was created by the ChessMood experts led by GM Avetik Grigoryan and the experts at Quality Chess led by GM Jacob Aagaard. As I have noted many times in comments, I do not wish any credit for merely sharing other people's hard work.
ReplyDeleteI am always pleasantly surprised by the insights you extract/derive from those references.
Keep 'em coming!
Have we come full circle back to Philidor?
ReplyDelete…to play the pawns well; they are the soul of chess: it is they which uniquely determine the attack and the defense, and on their good or bad arrangement depends entirely the winning or losing of the game."
I am inclined to think so, but GM Arkell wasn't quite sure whether his focus on pawns for endgame play was exactly what Philidor meant.
DeleteThere is of course the pawn play in the middlegame that focuses on forming the LoA landscape which is the other aspect of pawn play.
Personally I don't bother so much. My question is: is there in My System a solid base for pawn play in the middlegame that focus on both aspects of pawnplay: building a LoA landscape to activate your pieces AND get an advantage that makes you ready for the endgame.
Update of the post in bold/italics (blogspot ruined the possibility to color the text)
ReplyDeleteMy impression is that My System gives an overall plan for the middlegame based on the pawns. I will try to rewrite that in a way that even I can understand what I'm doing. Halas has the book from Quality Chess been lost in the fire. I hope that the Fast Track edition is a well enough replacement.
ReplyDelete@Robert, is there a Q and A section about pawns in the middlegame in the version of Quality Chess?
The only explicit Q & A session follows Chapter 4, The passed pawn. The remainder are schematic illustrations (if there is a summary).
DeleteThe entire book is about pawns—in the opening, middlegame and endgame, and the surface-level strategic clues which the pawns provide as to how to best position and utilize the pieces based on those clues.
In the Preface to My System, GM Nimzowitsch provides the rationale for the entire book:
"Of course, the MAIN IDEA, the thorough analysing one by one of the different elements of chess STRATEGY, is based on inspiration."
The elements of STRATEGY [WHAT to do] are elucidated with several examples of TACTICS [HOW to do it].
That the book is NOT limited to endgame strategy (merely because it is based on pawn structures) is evident by the inclusion of Chapter 6, The elements of endgame strategy. GM Nimzowitsch justifies that diversion from the main idea [my emphasis added]:
EXCERPT
Introduction and general comments
The typical disproportion
It is a well-known phenomenon that the very same amateur who was able to conduct his middlegame very creditably appears to be quite helpless in the endgame. The disproportion just mentioned is not very well handled in the older method of teaching chess. One of the main requisites of good chess is the ability to play the middlegame and the endgame with equal skill. It may be in the nature of things for the student to gain first plenty of experience of the opening and the middlegame, but this problem (and it is a problem) must be tackled as soon as possible. You must be made aware from the very start that the endgame is in no way to be compared with stale leftovers from the feast of the middlegame. The endgame is much more THE part of the game in which the advantages acquired in the middlegame are to be REALIZED. Now, the realization of advantages, specifically advantages of the material sort, is in no way a “lesser” occupation. Quite the opposite: it is a concern of the whole person, of the whole artist! In order to know what happens in the endgame and to appreciate it, you must learn about the endgame by starting from its individual elements, because it has such elements, just like the middlegame. We have already thoroughly analysed one such element, the passed pawn. There remain:
1. Centralization with its subdivision: ”Using the king, or shelters and bridge building”
2. The aggressively posted rook and the activity of pieces in general
3. Welding together isolated troops
4. “General advance!”
5. The “materialisation of files” we have already mentioned. (This should be understood to mean that the file [at first a somewhat “abstract” concept] will be transformed into a single point [protected by a pawn] which can be seized or can be said to be more concrete.)
Endgames are interesting in themselves, quite without Rinck or Troitsky.
END EXCERPT
Ok, I just made my decision. I'm not going to bother about pawns in the middlegame. I'm studying the books of Kabadayi, which are mainly about the LoA landscape in the middlegame, and that is enough for now.
ReplyDeleteThat means that I'm going to focus on endgame strategy. I now know where to start: with the pawns. I suspect that it will take a considerable time to get the hang of it. When I know what I want to achieve in the endgame, it will be soon enough to get back to the middlegame and adjust my pawn play there accordingly.