Isolated Pawn Positions | Chess Middlegames
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- An isolated pawn is almost always a weakness. It’s a structural deficit for the defending side and the only advantage it gives is possible piece activity and open files and diagonals.
An isolated pawn is a pawn which has no adjacent pawns to protect it. That means that it can only be defended by a piece. It creates a weakness on the square in front of it as well, since no pawn is able to attack it.
Playing with an isolated pawn:
If you have a permanent structural weakness which is hard to get rid off, your first and foremost priority should be to gain as much activity as possible and to compensate for he weakness with piece activity. If you trade off pieces and get into an endgame, you are simply going to lose. Generally, the only isolated pawn which is theoretically justified is the isolated queens pawn. Having a pawn isolated on the d file gives you several advantages: you have the open or semi open c and e files, you have outposts on c5 and e4, you have open diagonals towards the opponent’s king. The IQP is a great attacking asset, but the same principle applies; trade pieces and you lose.
The second principle you have to follow when playing with an isolated pawn is trying to dissolve it as soon as possible. If you trade of the weakness, you have no weaknesses! Keep an eye open for a pawn push like that.
Playing against an isolated pawn:
If the pawn is an IQP, defend your king and try to kill any activity your opponent has. Beware of bishop sacrifices on h7. If you are playing against a weak isolated pawn though, there are two principles to remember. Never attack the pawn unless it’s fixed. When your opponent has a structural weakness, you want to make sure it becomes permanent. The best way to play against an isolated pawn is to blockade it. The best blockading pieces are knights. Once the weakness is fixed, attack it! And don’t rush. Get all of your pieces into play, develop, stop your opponent’s counter play and capture when the situation is perfect (see Ivanchuk’s game in the video). This is why fixing the weakness is important. You don’t allow your opponent to trade it off, and you give yourself the luxury of capturing it in the perfect moment.
If you would like to support the channel and my quest to chess improvement, you can donate here: www.paypal.me/...
Any support is greatly appreciated! Thank you!
#chess
Middle game ideas are simply great. Thanks for your time.
Thank you for watching mate:)
I have been pleasantly surprised by the efficacy of an isolated queen's pawn, sometimes. 😉 Another engaging lesson. Amazing quality in your presentations. Thank you for sharing your training journey with so many who hope, and work, for improving their chess.
Thank you David for the constant and immense support!
Thank you for uploading so regularly. You are great at explaining and I improved much just by watching a few videos of yours. Please keep saving my days! 👍
:) Thanks for saying that! I'm very happy to help if I can!
Thank you, Stjepan. The truth is I´ve avoided to play with an isolated pawn and prefed playing against it. Now, thanks to you, I´m able to see even advantages of having one and to understand how to play not only against it but with it too. Have a nice day!
Thanks for posting these. I stumbled across your channel a couple of weeks ago and just to say, your content is superb! Thanks again! :-)
Thank you for the great feedback Mark! I'm glad you think so!
@@HangingPawns Really is great stuff! I've found your Middlegame series particularly helpful, especially the video on weak square. That's a concept I've found pretty challenging, your video made the ideas seem simple and clear, and that alone has improved my play. Thanks again!
Great video, not sure I fully understand context of @19:19, could you please elaborate?
Great help as usual in all of your content. Thanks so much for sharing your experience to help us all improve!
Awesome, as usual. Thanks for you work.
Thank you very much:)
Nice video!
Thanks!
So clear and helpful as always!
Thank you for your hard work.
Thank you for watching Hanya!
best chess channel their is
You are amazing, really informative and simplified. Thanks man
Thanks Mohammed!
So useful
Great!:)
So well explained. Great teaching.
You are the man.
I really enjoy your content Stjepan, started watching you ~1 month ago.
As a constructive criticism to improve the quality of your videos, look into fixing the microphone fuzz/buzz. I doubt you'd need to invest into a new michrophone, should be a matter of optimising the recording settings.
but you really have to listen closely to realise it
It really is barely hearable
I will try to do something about it. The problem is that there is a bus road right outside the flat I just moved to. It's the traffic.
If you are recording in OBS, there are ways to apply filters to the recorded sound, should help a bit!
thank you sir
Thank you:)
Thanm you!
Informative!!!
I did know this.
Thanks
Great video :). In the first example, wouldn't white playing e5 (instead if moving the bishop) win a knight as it's also a discovered attack on the queen? Not sure if I am missing something or not.
Thank you sir
Very instrutcive!
Good
Thank you Dharmik!
Hanging Pawns
You are not able to make series on book so no problem but make video on following topic.
What do when we have have lead in developement but material down
@@user-rw2hj1dm6t That is an excellent topic. I will! Thank you for the suggestion
I have a question, I’m not that high rated, and my friend says when playing good players, it is not good to play too positionally, would you also support this?
That's not true in my opinion. That's exactly what higher rated players bank on. Us hanging ourselves with overly aggressive play and risking too much. They hate positional play and slow, solid improvement. My advice would be play as boring and as good as possible:)
Nice video like it
man, if your chess rating is almost 1900, your graphic design skills are 2700+ :)
:)
Thank you:) It's great to feel good at something!:)
Sir hindi captions 🙏