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Hi, the pawn, the soul of chess. it was the piece that evolved the less. There was some trials to change the rule of the pawn. The most know is Berolina Pawn where the pawn moves diagonally forward including the double step when first moving and capturing one square ahead. This trial really denatures the chess structure, and the game is no longer a game of chess. An interesting trial to change pawn rules and playable online is here www.musketeerchess.net

This is the 2nd study group planned for Pawn Structure University. The first study group "Understanding Pawn Play" is structured around the analysis of complete games from the book "Understanding Pawn Play in Chess", by Marovic. This 2nd group will be working through a Chess Mentor course on Pawn Play by IM John Grefe. The goal is to work through one lesson from the Chess Mentor Pawn Play course every two weeks and report our scores and comments on what we learned in this forum. By scheduling a new lesson every 2 weeks, we can encourage each other to keep making progress without taking too much time away from our other activities. I haven't taken any lessons from this course, yet, but the topic is appropriate to our group. Similar courses I've seen in the Chess Mentor series take about 20-30 minutes to complete each lesson. Note: Due to the fact that this study group is based on Chess Mentor, only Premium members of chess.com will be able to participate. If you're not a Premium member, you might consider upgrading your membership, or participating in our other Pawn Structure University study group(s) instead (such as the Marovic study group mentioned previously). If you are interested in this Chess Mentor Pawn Play study group, simply reply to this post indicating your interest. Once we get 6 interested members, we'll kick things off. ECHOOooo.....

This forum topic will continue our study of Marovic's "Understanding Pawn Play in Chess" book. This posting covers Game 2, pgs 11-13 - A game between Gary Kasparov and Nigel Short from the 1986 Brussels Tournament. For those who are also members of chessgames.com and like to use their Guess-the-Move chess training tool (my favorite way to play through a game!), here's the direct link: Kasparov-Short, 1986. I'll post the game in the chess.com game previewer after some introductory comments, so as not to give away the moves for anyone who wants to play "Guess the Move". Here's a photo of the contestants, taken about 7 years after this game was played. At the time the picture was taken, Gary Kasparov held the title of World Champion from 1986-1990. From 1990-1993, a set of Interzonal and Candidates matches were held, during which Nigel Short emerged as the top contender, but Kasparov retained his title after beating short in the 1993 match. On to the game featured in our Pawn Play study group, though. This game is included as an excellent example of the Isolated Queen's Pawn (IQP), and demonstrates again the transformation of an isolated pawn to a passed pawn "creating havoc on the 7th rank". Before playing through the game itself, please see if you can solve these two puzzles. Puzzle 1: The first puzzle is a single move...see if you can find Kasparov's move in this position: Puzzle 2: The second puzzle consists of 3 consecutive moves to which that Marovic awards an exclam: After attempting each puzzle, reply to this forum to let the other members of our study group know that you are participating and tell us whether or not you were able to solve either or both of these puzzles. Now, for the game itself:

This forum lists articles on pawn structure and invites PSU members to comment/discuss. Here's our first article - an introductory discussion by Natalia Pogonina: Strong and Weak Pawns.

The purpose of this study group is to study the book "Understanding Pawn Play in Chess" by Drazen Marovic. Here's a short synopsis of the book: "Experienced grandmaster and trainer Drazen Marovic elucidates the pawn's multi-faceted nature. By investigating high-quality games from grandmaster practice, he provides the reader with an armoury of pawn-play concepts that will help him or her to make the right judgments at the board. Chapters include: Isolated Pawns, Hanging Pawns, Passed Pawns, Doubled Pawns, Backward Pawns, Pawn-Chains, and Pawn-Islands." From Marovic: "We shall learn from games remarkable for their clarity and simplicity of thought. First, we shall analyse them, see how the pawns fare in the circumstances and then draw some valuable conclusions. I believe it is indispensable to analyse the phenomenon of pawn-structures, especially those in the centre, on the central files, on the basis of whole games, because only then is the whole process in front of us: we see how the structures are brought about and what becomes of them, and the causes behind the process. The result is inevitably rewarding: we can grasp the general lesson on the subject." The book is essentially a compendium of about 100 full games analyzed from the perspective of pawn structures and pawn play. The book is available from Amazon.com at this link: Understanding Pawn Play in Chess It won't be strictly necessary to purchase the book. I hope to find and post in this forum the PGN files for most games we analyse from the book so everyone can participate via their own analysis of the games. But the most benefit will occur if you purchase the book so you can see Marovic's commentary. Please reply to this posting if you wish to participate in this study group. Once we have a half-dozen or so participants, we will begin our journey.

We'll use this new topic to continue our study of Marovic's "Understanding Pawn Play in Chess" book. This topic will cover Game 3, pgs 13-14 - A game between Vasily Smyslov and Anatoly Karpov from the 1971 USSR Championship, held in Leningrad. For those who are also members of chessgames.com and like to use their Guess-the-Move chess training tool (my favorite way to play through a game!), here's the direct link: Smyslov-Karpov, 1971. I'll post the game in the chess.com game previewer after some introductory comments, so as not to give away the moves for anyone who wants to play "Guess the Move". In 1971. Anatoly Karpov, 20, is on his way to the world championship – which he wins four years later. But on his way he encounters a future predecessor. Vassily Smyslov, 50, was the seventh world champion. The key encounter results in an overwhelming victory for the older man. Dennis Monokroussos writing for chessbase.com (on the Chessbase Playchess server) has this to say about the game: "Back in 1971, Anatoly Karpov was a rapidly rising star, but no one thought the 20-year-old grandmaster would become world champion in just four more years. Vassily Smyslov, his 50-year-old opponent, was a former world champion and still one of the best players in the world. Neither was at his prime, but they were still very strong and this clash in the 39th Soviet Championship was intriguing and significant to the final standings. Although the title was won that year by Vladimir Savon in one of the great surprises in Soviet chess history, Smyslov had a fantastic result, going undefeated and tying for second with Mikhail Tal. Karpov was half a point behind Smyslov, finishing alone in fourth place, ahead of such luminaries as Stein, Bronstein, Polugaevsky, Taimanov and Geller in only his second shot at the national title. The event was a good sign for players: for Karpov, of his inevitable rise to the top, and for Smyslov, an indication that age was far from catching up with him. Indeed, 13 years later, at the age of 63, he would play Kasparov for the right to face Karpov for the world championship – an incredible achievement. Turning from the broader picture to the game itself, which was won by the older man, we might think that the win came as the result of technical prowess. After all, Smyslov is known as a great endgame technician, and it’s what we would expect from an older player beating a youngster. That’s an understandable assumption, but a mistaken one. Smyslov is a fine attacking player, and especially adept at handling isolated queen pawn (IQP) structures. Karpov is completely overwhelmed by Smyslov in this game – strategically, tactically, every which way! It’s a tremendous performance by the 7th world champion, and one we can learn from in at least two ways. First, there are the general lessons of the IQP we can glean from the game. These are enduring ideas that show up in a wide range of openings, from the Caro-Kann to the Nimzo-Indian to a host of Queen’s Gambit lines. Second, there’s a nifty trap Karpov fell for – and that Smyslov failed to take advantage of! Remarkably, quite a number of strong players have fallen into this trap (and a few others with White have failed to take advantage), so this is something you can add to your own bag of tricks." Enough of the preliminaries, on to the game: As we've done before, feel free to comment on what you learn about pawn structures by playing through this game. I may add a quiz/puzzle from the game after my own run-through - or, feel free to challenge the group with your own puzzle from this game.