Opening Pawn Moves for Beginners

Beginning Chess Players

Please post your games on this thread for the purpose of better understanding the good and bad pawn moves that happen all too often in the opening at the beginning level. I will start. Thank you.

Analysis from the stronger players on this site will be much appreciated and necessary for this thread on opening pawn moves to be successful.

My opponent opened with 1.e4.  Bobby Fischer said, "1.e4, best by test".  I wasn't happy about playing 4...d6. Was it a good or bad pawn move during the opening?

Your 9th move, instead of exd4 winning a piece, you castled headlong into the kingside, where an open file...of doom awaited you.  If it were I, things like that would concern me more then whether or not d6 on move 4 is bad or good. If improvement is your goal; try  to deal with the mountains and don't worry too much about the molehills.

I personally don't like to play d6 until my bishop is clear.  As you see he got pinned in and it was quite a while before he could get out.  If i do play d6 i will fianchetto my bishop, but I am learning that I am not good enough to do that on the king side when i castle that way. 

Intersting point about castling king side when your opponents file was open.  I never knew about that, so I appreciate the advice.  Makes perfect since, though. 

Nice win. 

Excellent observations!

@ planeden - Yes. I don't like d6 for the same reason. It does block my bishop. 

@ happyfanatic - castling kingside where an open file existed (doom awaits). I like that. It looks like against a stronger player I would have been doomed. I didn't notice the open file. Thanks!!

Arg! Time to go to work. For some reason, chess.com is blocked at public schools. I think it is because my school district blocks gaming sites.  It sucks. Oh well, it does keep me focused on teaching.

Is that guy teaching you, who said he would? Polydiatic, or how ever you spell his avatar name.

Perhaps this fits better in the game analysis section of the forums - you should be getting advice on your entire game, not just the opening part.

I like the idea of this post to help beginers with openings.  perhaps we should open one for middle and end games as well.  I know I could really use help with endgames. It seems really handy to have "openings analyzed" in one location so someone can go through the aspect of the game that they want to focus on. 

Of course, I don't think posting here would prohibit anyone from analyzing the whole game. 

Thank you. I have many beginning level games that I have played on this site. I'll go through them to see which ones would be the most instructive as it relates to pawn moves in the beginning.

I do appreciate the comment. My goal is just to focus on pawn moves in the opening phase of the game. I don't even want to focus on the pieces in the opening. Pawns determine the placement of the pieces, so my hope is for all beginning players reading this thread to learn something about a few basic things:

1. What role do the pawns play in the opening?

2. How many pawns should be pushed in the opening, on average?

3. How should player A respond when player B does not push a center pawn in the opening?

4. How should player A respond when player B only moves pawns in the opening and places them all on one color? I see this often.

I have so many questions regarding what to do with my pawns in the opening. The list goes on and on.

I am surprised to find a game where I chose to place all of my pawns on one color. This is something I found very unpleasant when my opponent did this.

Do you see any bad pawn moves in this opening from either side of the board and what could have been done better? What can be learned from Black's pawn moves?

I did blunder in the end and got checkmated by a pawn. It seems fitting, with this being a discussion on pawns.

1. h2

Oh wait. I thought the thread read, "BY Beginners." My bad.

1. I will give it some more thought. Being a beginning chess player, I could be going about this all wrong.

My System is a great book. Extremely comprehensive.  I have it, however, it's published in descriptive, not algebraic notation. I'm looking for a good publisher of this classic by Aron Nimzovich in Alegebraic Notation with an editor who is faithful to Aron's wit. Any suggestions?

Example of descriptive notation from My System:

"After 1.P-K4, P-K3; 2.P-Q4, P-Q4; 3. P-K5, a Black and White Pawn-chain has been formed."

Who is able to form a mental picture of the board and pieces after this move sequence? I can't.

Below is a strange pawn move made by Grand Masters on move one. I kid you not. How should Black respond? There is one very good response. Do you see it?

Try the 2007 publication by Quality Chess. ISBN 9197600539. It is in algebraic edition AND the english is a modern translation as well.

Get the new edition of Chess Praxis, the companion book to My System, while you're at it. ISBN 9185779008.

Musikmole:  I think that the main problem with the "i want to focus on pawns, not pieces" is that you can't really seperate the two, especially in the opening.  the pawns are there to support your pieces and they block them.  so the idea is to move pawns that allow you to get your pieces out, and allow pawns protect your pieces (sorta simplified). 

look at the pawns in the game posted #12.  you made three pawn moves and only opened the door for two pieces (knights can jump, so they don't really count unless you play c3 or f3 which blocks their happy place).  so your first pawn move gave doors to your queen and dark bishop (but hampered your light bishop a bit).  the next two moves opened more doors for the dark bishop and queen, not helping the light bishop.  to make matters worse, your fourth pawn move totally trapped your light bishop and he was unable to get into the game until move 17 (at which time you traded him).  not a great use of a bishop, but brought about by the opening pawn play. 

also, the first three pawn moves did nothing to help control the center, give you space to work your pieces, or leave fortifications for your king.  in fact, both castling squares have a pawn advance in front of them.  which i find to be problematic sometimes, and i think it is considered a weakness in general. 

"i want to focus on pawns, not pieces" is that you can't really seperate the two, especially in the opening.

Good point, but I am not completely convinced based on what I was able to learn from IM Daniel Rensch when I was a Diamond Member. Most of it was over my head, but for those who are more advanced than I, Daniel's series on pawn structures would be most beneficial.

Why did Andrew Soltis bother to write Pawn Structure Chess? I understand that this is THE book on pawns. I have it and it's in algebraic notation.

In a simplified version, Daniel made the point that the pawn structure dictates the placement of the pieces and the resulting attacking lines. He started the series by taking the pieces off of the board and having the viewers just look at the pawns.

Soltis writes, "Philidor himself explained why they (pawns) enable you to be brilliant in carrying out middlegame plans: 'Pawns alone create attack and defense.' In fact, many if not most great sacrificial battles seem to spring naturally out of favorable pawn structures."

One more qoute from Soltis, "The pawns are the most permanent features of a position: Between the end of the opening and the beginning of the endgame, they change relatively little. As a result, the pawns' structure becomes the terrain of a battlefield. The stronger center offers the high ground that every general desires. The absense of pawns creates open files and diagonals - the valleys and ridges that deliver access routes into the hands of the attacking army."

"...also, the first three pawn moves did nothing to help control the center, give you space to work your pieces, or leave fortifications for your king.  in fact, both castling squares have a pawn advance in front of them.  which i find to be problematic sometimes, and i think it is considered a weakness in general. "

Outstanding observations made from this experimental pawn opening of mine in post 12. Soltis would not have been happy if I were his student!

ISBN numbers! Thank you!

As a fellow book afficionado, I figured that you would appreciate it.

FYI, those numbers had embedded links to the appropriate Amazon pages as well.

We are book pals for life!

I just placed an order for My System (9197600539) through www.abebooks.com for only $ 17.01 (Brand New) with free shipping and no tax all the way from the United Kingdom. Like is good. For those that want to order this classic work, the store has 10 copies.

Bookseller: The Book Depository, Guernsey, GY, United Kingdom.

Regarding The Praxis, could you type a bit of the table of contents or a bit of what the book covers? Amazon has no customer images. Perhaps the description below says it all. It looks like this book is filled with annotated games from Nimzowitsch.

"Chess Praxis" was Nimzowitsch's follow-up to his classic "My System" which introduced Nimzowitsch's 'hypermodern' theories about how chess should be played. This book shows how these ideas work in practice. Nimzowitsch uses his own most entertaining games to explain how a grandmaster thinks about chess.

I can. (I recognized it immediately as the French Defense, Advance Variation.) Descriptive notation is different, but not difficult. I think it's best to know both. It shouldn't take more than two minutes to learn, though it will take a bit of use to become second nature.