Pawn Levers: An Advanced Tactic

Ever since I heard the term "Pawn Lever" I have wanted to write about them.  The pawns as a group are my favorite chess piece and the mysteries of positional play and brilliant attacks can only be understood with a complete knowledge of how to use your pawns.  I dare say many or most players have never heard the term Pawn Lever even though it may be the single most important tactic separating class players from experts:

According to Kmoch, a lever is a pawn move which:

     1)  offers to trade itself; and

     2)  leads to an ultimate improvement in the pawn structure of the side playing it; and/or

     3)  damages the opponent's pawn structure.

Here's a good example:

Pawn levers can occur at any phase of the game and are often decisive for positional or long-term gains.  Take the next example  where a fierce middle-game battle is suddenly won by black with a simple pawn move:

In the book Test, Evaluate and Improve Your Chess, the authors and contributors have named a bunch of different pawn lever tactics such as an Attacking Lever, Space-gaining Lever, Head Pawn Lever, the Sicilian Lever, the Duo-Busting Lever, and my favorite, the Sweeper Sealer Twist!  Here's an example of the so-called Sweeper Sealer Twist:

So, as you can see, pawn levers are an absolutely crucial tactical device that every chess player should, at the very least, be aware of.  Now many of you have a name to apply to these types of pawn moves and hopefully this awareness will help further our understanding of positional and pawn play.  I'm also hoping this discussion will attract the attention of some of the experts and masters on chess.com to give the rest of us some additional insights into the mysteries of pawn play.  I think it would be great if people posted many examples of pawn levers or any brilliant pawn moves in the comments and I will try to do the same.  I think seeing this maneuver repeatedly will give many of us additional ideas over the board for how to use our pawns more creatively.  Thank you for reading!

Lol, one of my threads has Lasker pulling the emergency lever.

Was that the post with the endgame and doubled pawns vs three pawns? Post it here EM.

White is Lasky.

I think it's a draw if white simply advances his h-pawn and replies to black's pawn advances with captures when necessary.  If black queens on a1 there should be a pawn on c3 blocking the queen so white can queen on h8.  If black queens on c1 then it doesn't matter as white queens easily.  Am I right!?

DANGIT ORMI ALWAYS KNOWS HE IS A PLILOSIPHER

PLILOSIPHER:  (noun)  Someone into pontificating about drawn chess endgames.  root is from a chess.com forum post circa 2014.

Who'd have thunk it?

Kmoch - a favorite. And his book on pawn structure is never far away from my chess board. Very informative post. Thanks.

Thanks IonGeorgiou. I really feel pawns don't get the attention they deserve. Even after all these years of playing chess, I feel like I have barely scratched the surface in understanding pawns. Hopefully many more discussions ahead!

Whte can draw

Maybe I don't see something important but at first glance I would say that white is winning. He only needs 5 moves to promote plus black cannot queen on c1 after white queens the pawn. I will put it on a board.

Edit: Okay I see, the b pawn will queen with check, and black will find a way to keep checking.

i think pawn levers are important in closed positions

because you have to attack the root of the pawn chain

Thanks so much for your explanation of levers Ormi! I heard very vaguely about them from a fellow league player but apparently the book was in descriptive notation which is a real pain to read.

I believe with the doubled pawn problem wh actually gains enough tempi by refusing to take any pawns until they reach the 3rd rank. Fortunately for bl after advancing both h and f pawns to the 4th he can forcibly give up his c pawn and queen in relative safety behind the blocked diagonal.

Almost certainly a draw but probably worth trying a few more moves as wh. Just don’t go and lose!

Edit: Don’t think this is a lever problem? Nvm bl has to use one.