10 Concepts About Pawn Tension

some of the trickiest positions in chess so when you have a bunch of pawns in the center and you're not sure how to resolve that tension you could capture this way you could capture this way you could push by or you could just leave those pawns alone and do something else right if you make the wrong choice in these positions a lot of times it's going to lead to a worse position for you so in this video i'm going to give you 10 concepts that you can think about that will help you make the right choice and real quick before we start a huge thank you to my new patrons tim jason j jacob and nathan really appreciate you guys and now let's get to the video all right concept number one is actually more important than anything else on this list okay this one trumps everything else so pay close attention but concept number one is that always be on the lookout for tactical tricks okay so let me give you an example king's gambit starts like this and black can play the fog beer counter gambit d5 and all of a sudden on move two we have a lot of central tension between these pawns we can capture this way we can capture this way we can push by or we can just do something else and there's actually a well-known trap here but if you take this way you immediately are losing because the queen comes out check and if you try to block it check again and you're losing your rook now to this fork and the only other thing you could do instead of blocking would be to move your king up which is absolutely terrible and you're probably going to get made it in the next couple of moves so um this is absolutely like the worst move that you could possibly play now capturing this way is not as big of a deal because the queen can come here you can just block with the pawn and there's no trick here uh forking your king and rook because the pawn is still here blocking the queen okay so this is an example of a tactical idea that's that's there in the position and if you miss that it doesn't matter what you calculated it doesn't matter what you were thinking about with these pawns and the pawn structure that maybe would arise or anything else it doesn't matter because you fell for that trick so always remember even though there's lots of tension between pawns there are other pieces on the board that you really have to pay attention to here's one more quick example black has just played e5 and white is contemplating playing rookie one maybe queen c2 they don't really want to mess with the pawn tension so they decide to play rookie one huge blunder because the pawn just moves forward and we lose a piece now we're getting forked okay so even though there's tension between the pawns you don't want to forget about all the other pieces that are around and in the game right usually these types of mistakes are the reason that a lot of people lose games not really anything to do with the pawn tension it's that they get distracted by the pawn tension and something like this happens and they lose a piece okay so always be on the lookout for tactical tricks where pieces are going to be hanging or something is is going to happen and uh because if that exists it like i said before it trumps everything else okay so keep that in mind all right concept number two that you wanna be thinking about is are you gonna be freeing up your opponent's pieces by the decision that you make so let's take a real basic example here this is the french defense e6 and d5 and one way that you could approach the french defense is to just simply trade this is called the exchange variation and there's nothing let's just say wrong with this but it does make black's life very easy because immediately you have opened up this bishop and now black can choose to put it here to put it here to put it here uh they have no problems developing their pieces this is just completely equal position right but if we go back you could have also maybe played the advanced variation where you push and now black has to deal with this bishop for the next at least several moves it's going to be pretty difficult to develop that bishop unless they want to put it on d7 there's not really anywhere else for it to go another option is you don't have to push but you can play a different line maybe knight c3 or knight d2 is another line where you're leaving the tension here and you're not opening up that bishop for your opponent okay so that's something you always want to be thinking about in these types of positions particularly if your opponent is kind of cramped and you have a little bit more space a lot of times trading off pawns like that will open up the position for your opponent so in those cases a lot of times it's either good to do nothing or sometimes pushing by is a is a smart choice all right concept number three is that you want to think about which files are going to be potentially open for your rooks or your opponent's rooks so in this position um the thing that first of all there's a lot of tension there are just two pawns two pawns so you have two different captures you could also push by or you could kind of just leave it and do something else but i want to draw your attention to these two rooks okay remember this this principle is about paying attention to open files for your rooks so how could we play a move that opens the file for these rooks well we could capture the pawn and then if black recaptures this is now an open file okay remember open file just means there's no pawns on it right and we have the double rook so even though black gets some control because they do have a rook there this is much better for us we have two rooks okay so that's totally a move that i would play and if you're wondering if they tried to capture with the knight then it allows us to play c4 the knight has to move then we can play d5 it opens up the bishop puts lots of pressure on the center and most likely this is still going to get open and be good for our rooks so to recap whenever you're thinking about which way to capture or should you capture you want to ask yourself well is it going to benefit my rooks if i capture one way or another if these rooks happen to be on the d file well then i might be more considering capturing this way because it's going to open up my rooks here okay so always be on the lookout for rooks and as well as your opponent's rooks also all right concept number four that you want to think about is does either player have a king that's still in the center so in this case black is already castled and has a rook in the center we have not catholic king is still in the center so very basic question here but do you think it would be smart for us to take this pawn well the answer is absolutely not because if we take it then black can recapture and look at that we've just unleashed a rook onto our king for no reason right we didn't have to do that makes no sense to do that so if you're in a position like that where your king's in the center you absolutely do not want to trade pushing by makes a lot of sense or even just leaving it right even just leaving it because this pawn on e6 is still going to be here blocking the rook right so either of those two options would be fine i would absolutely not take though okay so think about the king now if uh it was switched and we were castled and our opponent's king was in the center and we had a rook sitting here well then yeah i would absolutely want to take and try to get that file open for the rook alright the next concept you want to ask yourself is who has more knights or more bishops in the position so i've got a silly little example here where i still have the french defense e4 d4 e65 but i've just traded off black's bishops for our knights so one thing that you probably have heard about bishops is that they're better in open positions so since we have the bishop pair and our opponent has the knight what move do you think i should play in this position well the answer is captures because i want the position to be more open so that there's more diagonals that my bishops can have access to closing off the position like this is something that's going to benefit the knights because the knights don't really care if it's all blocked up they can hop around you know and jump over the pawns very easily whereas my bishops are going to be hindered okay now if we compare that to this position same exact position except i've switched it now i have the knights and my opponent has the bishops well of course the best move now is going to be to do this keep the center as closed as much as i can restrict my opponent's bishops and my knights can hop around and do whatever they need to do so you want to be thinking about you know do you have more knights or more bishops in a particular position and then maybe that's a clue as to like should i lock up the position or should i potentially open it up alright the next concept you want to think about is gaining space and a lot of times you can push by instead of capturing or allowing the tension and when you push by you can gain some space so again we've seen it a few times already but the french one of the lines you can play is called the advanced variation and what this does for white is immediately gives you a lot of space so when i say space what i'm talking about or see how all of these squares are open for my pieces if i want to bring this knight here or here i can do it but without a problem if i want to bring the bishop here here i can do it i want to bring the bishop here i can do it black on the other hand doesn't have the luxury of that the knight can't go here the bishop can't go here you know there's only really one square for these guys to go to this bishop is kind of blocked so they have to really maneuver their pieces around and it's just very cramped so this is an advantage and it's in a lot of other positions as well if you push by usually you gain some space and that could be an advantage that does come with some weaknesses which we'll talk more about a little bit later but generally speaking something you want to keep in mind all right the next concept you want to think about is what is the resulting pawn structure going to look like after you resolve the tension and depending on how you resolve the tension so let me give you just a quick example here this is the modern defense so bishop g7 uh knight c3 there's this one line at c5 and black is obviously creating some tension here now if we decide you know what i'm just going to go ahead and take it black has the option now to capture here and we take and we get these tripled pawns very uh ugly looking pawns and the reason triple pawns are so bad is because this pawn can't move because this one's in the way this one can't move because this one's in the way they can't defend each other they're kind of just like sitting ducks and just targets right boom boom okay now that being said it's not all bad news for us we do have the bishop pair uh black did create some some serious weaknesses on the king side here so it kind of balances out but the point the point is that before you make this capture you have to ask yourself do i am i okay you know playing this position and do i like am i willing to play with triple pawns and if the answer is no well then you don't want to do that you want to consider maybe move like e3 right if you really care about your pawn structure that would be a better move um d5 also could be played but you do have you know this pawn structure here which is also maybe not good as well so you have to think through that another pawn structure that you want to be aware of is what's called the isolated d-pawn and so just a real quick example we'll go back to the french here let's just say i did play the exchange fringe and then there's a line where you can play c4 i can't remember the name of this but um basically you know you're trying to put pressure on the pawn this way well black has the option that they can just take it and when they do that you now have this isolated d-pawn and you know this can be a target for black right because there's no palms that can defend it and eventually black can play knight c6 maybe this rook can come over at some point bishop potentially it could become a target now it's not all bad news because you know you do have a pawn in the center that is controlling some central squares and sometimes it works out nicely for white but again you have to think through this if you're going to play a move like c4 or from black's perspective you know this might be something that i think through like you know what i think i do want to take this because i want to create that isolated pawn and then i want to go and attack it that's going to be my my game plan later on in the game that's that's a viable strategy right so think through that and i'll give you one more pawn structure example this one's a little bit more advanced but it comes out of the queen's gamut and this is just the queen's gambit declined and let's just say knight c396 if you trade these pawns um a lot of times let's say knight f3 c6 bishop g5 there should be 73 castles uh bishop d3 okay you get a position like this and the pawn structure is interesting in that white has these two pawns over here and then black has all these four connected well this actually gives you the opportunity to play what is called the minority attack and the way the minority attack works is you're going to push these pawns down like this and your goal is going to be to try to trade this one for this one so for example let's say i played let's box turn let's just say a3 because i want to set up b4 i don't know black's just going to do some random stuff over here i'm going to put my rook on b1 we'll say they maneuver the knight here a4 bishop b6 b5 okay black plays i don't know rook c8 and i take this let's this is a successful minority attack obviously i didn't really try to stop it by black but um i've traded off the pawn and this is now a backward pawn okay it's backward because it can't really advance um without there's no support from adjacent pawns and so this is a good target for me now i can castle and line up my rooks here and potentially try to win this pawn on c6 okay all that right started way way back all the way back at the beginning when we have this tension and i decided you know what i'm going to trade it off right and we got this this pawn structure so that's kind of a more advanced example but you want to be thinking through the resulting pawn structure even as early as this and how does that how could that play out down the road all right the next concept to keep in mind is that it's easier to attack on the flank when the center is closed so let me give you an example and this time we're going to look at it from black's perspective but it's going to be the french again okay so the french defense advanced variation the the whole point here that black usually does is try to attack the d4 square so c5 and white tries to defend it we try to keep attacking it white defends it keep attacking it and now there's this move bishop d3 and we can't actually take it even though it looks like one two three uh and only two defenders if we take it this is kind of a well-known trap takes takes takes takes at the end of everything white has this discovered attack on our queen with check right so they put us in check we have to do something about the check and we lose our queen okay so uh we can't actually take it and there's you know a move that might pop into some people's minds what about c4 and the problem with this move even though it looks like oh it's kind of cool we're attacking the bishop the bishop has to move is after the bishop moves we have nothing happening now as black right before we had a lot of pressure on the d4 square we had some threats that white had to be careful for now we have nothing like we're never going to take this with these with these pieces unless we're willing to just sacrifice a piece right and white on the other hand has exactly what they would like to do so a lot of times in these positions white likes to attack on the king side their pawn chain is aimed in that direction usually you want to attack in the direction of your pawn chain bishops are lined up that direction and it's very easy for white to do that and not have to worry about anything happening in the center if we back up a couple moves right here now white always has to pay attention because we might capture here right even if we're not winning a pawn we might capture just to kind of open up things now our bishop can come in or maybe our knight can come in or our queen can come over we have lots of things we can do once we push um there's no more anything for black here okay the only thing i mean we can eventually push these pawns out and try to make something happen but it's probably not going to work out well for us and that's something that you want to keep in mind when you're in these positions and you've got some tension and you're thinking about pushing past okay all right the next concept's a bit more advanced but you have to realize that whenever you push a pawn forward you're giving up control of some some squares and sometimes those can be used against you so let me give you an example from a an opening that this guy used to play with at college he was an international master and he always used to play this opening against me and i really had a tough time with it so let me explain i would play e4 and this guy would play g6 bishop g7 and then he would play c6 okay and i would do something normal like knight f3 and he'd play d5 and i always would push by and i would think you know this looks pretty good for me because i've blunted the bishop here and i've gained a bunch of space right well the issue with this move if there is an issue is that it gives up control of the square right here f5 okay and what this guy would do against me would play h5 i would do something he'd play knight h6 i would do something else i don't know bishop g5 and he would just sink his knight in here on f5 and this knight is so annoying like even if i were to go bishop d3 and try to take it then the bishop comes and there's a bishop and because i've pushed this pawn forward i can't attack it that way and because this pawn's on h5 i can't play g4 even if i tried to play h3 and g4 i can't even do that because he just takes it and then at the end of that my rook is hanging right so basically this knight just sits there all game putting pressure on d4 being annoying and it all happened because i decided to push by on e5 right if i didn't do that go back here you know the pawn maybe would still be there now of course they could have taken it and then it's just gone but that's kind of a different position but this is the point right whenever you push you are giving up control of some squares and you have to be careful and think through that now i'm not saying that this is a bad move you should never play it i'm just saying be aware that hey there's a hole here now that you know pieces can go to all right the last concept is that sometimes it can be advantageous to leave your pawns in the center and keep some central pawns so you know talk thinking about the example that i just talked about how you know when you push by you create holes right let me give you another example so let's say e4 c6 d4 d5 there's one line it's called a fantasy variation where you play f3 and basically what you're trying to do is say oh you want to take my pawn okay that's fine i'll recapture it and i still have pawns in the center real quick another example this is like in the london d4 d5 bishop f4 uh you know whenever black plays c5 usually you play c3 and the idea is like okay go ahead take me i'll just take back with the pawn and i just keep my pawn on d4 right same idea here you keep your pawn on e4 so this is a good trick to remember that you know when somebody attacks a pawn in the center if you'd like to keep your central pawns you can do it by pushing one of these side ones either f3 or c3 now that being said there's an important thing that you really have to pay attention to here okay so listen carefully when you play f3 yes you are giving the pawn a defender and that's nice if they capture you you can recapture and you get control that's cool but they don't have to capture you and if they don't capture you you've taken away probably the best square for your knight okay knights do very well on these two squares right if it's black it's f6 and c6 white it's f3 and c3 and when you put a pawn there your knight's not going there right away okay same thing over here if we go back to uh the london here if i back up a couple moves they don't have to take you and your knight can no longer go to c3 now on the london it's not a big deal usually your night's going here anyway but if you are going to go with this kind of a strategy you have to keep that in mind and you're most likely your knight's going to have to go here if they don't take you or you're just going to have to wait right so keep that in mind and and maybe you know if you're playing um let's say black in this position that's something that you want to think about like do i want to capture and allow my opponent to get their knight on that good square pro probably not now it's certainly playable um but these are the things you want to think about alright guys well those are ten concepts you can keep in mind when you have pawn tension in the center if you enjoyed this video make sure you check out this one where i talk about how to blockade pawns and the importance of that you do not want to miss that one but as always thanks for watching stay sharp play smart take care [Music] you

Channel: Chess Vibes

Views: 233,822

Keywords: trading pawns in chess, when to resolve tension in chess, when to resolve center tension, center tension in chess, closed vs open center, when to advance, french variation in chess, chess french variation, when should you trade pawns, take or push pawns in chess

Id: uA-ybJodO70

Length: 19min 17sec (1157 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 14 2021