How do you improve your pawn game?

I'm finding most of my losses are coming from games with highly contested centers. I have trouble knowing which central pawns to move and when to move them.

I try not to get tangled up by my opponent at least guarding each advanced pawn as many times as my opponent is attacking them but I still fall prey to people manipulating the center to their advantage.

Is there any tips or "secrets" to making it to the Middle game with a strong pawn center? This is the part of my game that is weakest. I would like to know how you know which pawns to move and when. I know it all comes down to position but that isn't helping me any.

It all comes down to position.

There's no magic guideline that anyone can put into a couple of sentences that's going to be of any use. Any kind of rule or formula would have so many possible exceptions to it as to make it totally useless. 

You just have to study chess and build up your experience in such matters.

It always comes down to position and you need to post some games to study here to learn it. There is no short cuts or magic that will will make you strong in this area of your game overnight.

I knew these would be the responses. I am silly to have posted this. Sorry. I just need to study. I'm just frustrated. Best cure for that is to become unfrustrated by empowering myself with the knowledge I need in order to tackle the problem. Thanks

If you could sum this stuff up in a few sentences, people wouldn't need to take years and years to learn it all. 

+1

Not true i can sum it up in a few sentences.

You cant let any be taken or traded, and you have to trade all your pieces for your opponents pawns. That way when you get to the endgame youll have 8 queens against only his normal 8 starting pieces... its all just common sense.

It all comes down to the basics - defense, attack, active moves, passive moves and non-moves.  If you can master those, I believe you'll see marked improvement in your game.

J Young. Read these books: Pawn Power by Kmoch and Pawn Structure Chess by Soltis. When youre done with them, and take them very serious, trying to obsorb everything, then do it again. Both of them again, back to back. Not kidding. I'm sure there are others, but those come to mind now. If you get to where you can understand pawn structures and you've got the time and really care YOU WILL BECOME MUCH STRONGER. A beast to all your current competition.

Ok now that you have written the intro section to your $2 dollar book.

Now you can start giving us all the good stuff.

My mistake it cost $1.99 to ship so that would make it worth 1 cent, just a penny.

If you're white, typically you're the one who gets to set up a strong pawn center and your task is then to maintain/reinforce it (all while adequately developing in the opening). As black, you're usually trying to challenge/contest white's center. This is assuming white doesn't open with a more odd-ball type move (1.b4, 1.b3, 1.g3, 1.Nc3), in which case the roles can easily be reversed.

In general, you don't want to push a pawn past your 4th rank in the early opening stages of the game, but there are certainly exceptions to this guideline: French Defense and King's Indian Defense as white are two glaring exceptions I can think of. It should be noted though that in both these systems where white often pushes pawns to e5 and d5 (respectively), the center becomes closed, making it harder for black to exploit this 5th rank pawn commitment by white.

Aside from that, I'd have to echo the words of others and say that it boils down to playing experience, learning from your mistakes, and studying.

It's useless to learn theory in a flawed way that you will have to forget later anyway when you climb to higher levels.

yup and please buy the twin pack including it's sister text "why did the pawn cross the road?" to get my full 2 cents!

Be wary of Pawn Power In Chess though (all that jargon is not good for your system).

Have to do a sanity test here!

You are aware there is 64 squares on a chess board. I see you have that 205th  square business going on? I do not know maybe you see 205 squares when you look at the chess board and...... ????

Thank you for the recommendations. I have been looking to get a few books on pawn structure just haven't gotten around to it yet. Looks like now is the perfect time.

I pretty much ignored all the comments before me. If somebody has mentioned anything below I apologize.

It sounds to me like you have the most trouble with the structure of chess and, primarily, pawn structure. Start working on combining moves with your pawns and other pieces. Look for attacks that your pawns can help with or formulate positions which cause your pawn strength to increase.

Pawn structure is a weakness for many players. I use them as sacrificial pieces to gain position one game, and central pieces to my over all strategy. The following link should help you wish your pawn structure and central game theory:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1NVp1-MKNc&list=PL69OEJ0ZWIVF0w0pL-g0OOQGgNF_US4sg&index=9

Try to avoid hanging your pawns; keeping them together reinforces the over all structure of your position and oftentimes forces your opponent to spend moves working around them. Even in higher level games you will find this to be often true. Pawns can be your greatest asset, if you are able to use them correctly.

Please note that I have not viewed any of the videos in the link above in their entirety. I have simply skimmed for content and am intending to come back to them later. I also endorse no comments made by the author of the videos.

Very helpful advice thank you. I know most of these things but remembering to use them during your games is another thing. I will try to slow down and ask myself the whys of pawn moves. What is this going to do for me, does it help me more or help my opponent more kind of stuff. Thanks again