Pandolfini’s Ultimate Guide to Chess

by Bruce Pandolfini

  Student: Egad. I think I’m going to have to review that a few times. Funny thing is, I know that some players prefer having a combination of bishop and knight to either two bishops or two knights. Why is that?

  Teacher: When they’re feeling that way for logical reasons, it could be because the bishop and knight work very well in the situation at hand. A bishop-and-knight combination may be preferable when it’s not clear where the position may lead, and it’s unclear whether the resulting situations will favor a knight or a bishop. By keeping one of each, you’re covered for any possibility.

  Diagram 205. Black’s bishop pair is strong.

  Student: Could you offer anything more about the qualities of knights?

  Teacher: There is something nice about knights. By being able to guard both light and dark squares, the knight is suited for both offensive and defensive action. For example, it can attack squares of one color while occupying the other color, enabling it to confront an opposing bishop without the bishop being able to attack the knight. Moreover, by attacking and guarding squares a friendly bishop can’t cover, a knight is able to help a player influence squares of both colors. The two pieces can work in beautiful harmony. Style is another factor. Some players have a bent for manipulating the bishop-and-knight combination, but this works only when the position permits such flexibility. Then there’s sheer obduracy. Some players prefer particular circumstances, without regard to truth or merit, simply because they just do. Seek out such people and use their own thinking, or lack of it, against them.

  Student: If bishops are generally superior to knights, why are a queen and a knight working together preferred to a queen and a bishop?

  Teacher: You’ve obviously been chatting with some strong players, many of whom don’t even know how to tell a joke. In either case, whether you have a queen and a bishop or a queen and a knight, the real power is the queen and the various attacking motifs at its disposal. The bishop is an imperfect partner for the queen because at most it can guard just half the squares on the board, and only squares of one color at that. It can’t protect a queen occupying a square of the other color. Moreover, the bishop merely duplicates the queen’s diagonal move. Admittedly, that can be useful, of course, and most particularly when it’s needed.

  Student: I get it. A knight, on the other hand, is capable of attacking all of the board’s squares and can offer the queen twice as many support points as the bishop. The knight moves in a way the queen can’t, and that’s sure to add a vital extra dimension to the assault. If the knight can get near the target, it must be an excellent attack-mate for the queen, both as a supporter and because of its unique weaponry.

  Teacher: Once again we see how circumstances can change everything. A bishop is generally slightly better than a knight, but in the above discussion the knight gets the edge over the bishop. What a world this chess is. It doesn’t allow us to fall back on mindless platitudes or feckless placebos, and it punishes us for failing to look at what’s actually happening. How fair is that?

  LESSON 10

  PAWN PLAY AND WEAKNESSES

  Teacher: Let’s get back to our game. The knight at c3 is pinned to your king. What does this mean about the pawn on e4?

  Diagram 206. After 5 … Bh4.

  Student: That it’s no longer guarded?

  Teacher: That’s right. Chess can be complicated—and beautiful. By pinning the knight, Black’s dark-square bishop, the one on b4, is actually attacking the pawn on e4 by immobilizing the pawn’s defender, the knight on c3. Bishops can assail squares of the other color by attacking pieces that guard those squares—in particular, knights. Close analysis of this position also demonstrates that players do not have to occupy or guard the center to gain control. They can also exercise influence over it by attacking or driving away enemy units that guard it. Affecting the center in this way can be just as vital as inhabiting or protecting it.

  Student: How should White save his e-pawn?

  Teacher: We’ve already reviewed the protective possibilities offered by moving the pawn to f3 and the queen to d3. The reasons they failed earlier still essentially hold now. Both moves are premature, and the pawn move is weakening. Let’s consider another idea, 6. Bd3.

  Diagram 207. After the possible blunder 6. Bd3?

  Student: That seems like a reasonable move.

  Teacher: On the surface, it may seem to work fine. It deals with the threat to the e4-pawn, and it develops a piece to prepare kingside castling. But there’s one terrible drawback.

  Student: What’s that?

  Teacher: It cuts the communication between White’s queen and d4-knight, so that the knight is no longer protected. Black’s c6-knight could take White’s knight for free.

  Student: Too bad. If only there were some way that White could develop his bishop to d3 without losing his knight.

  Teacher: But there is. Any ideas?

  Student: How about moving the knight somewhere, say to b5 or b3?

  Teacher: Look again. Neither of those moves would immediately threaten Black, so he would be able to pursue his own plans. He could use the time to capture the pawn on e4 for nothing. White could expect the same result—losing a pawn for nothing—if before moving the bishop to d3, he were to expend a tempo instead by defending the knight with 6. Be3 (diagram 208). White’s bishop would secure d4, but it would ignore e4. Again Black would just take the e4-pawn.

  Diagram 208. After the possibility of 6. Be3.

  Student: Okay. None of those work, but you implied there’s a knight move that does work. What is it?

  Teacher: The only knight move for White that gains time meaningfully is to capture Black’s knight, 6. Nxc6 (diagram 209).

  Diagram 209. After the actual 6. Nxc6.

  Student: But that doesn’t do much.

  Teacher: Actually, it does. After Black plays the natural and virtually forced recapture on c6, say 6 … bxc6 (diagram 210), White can go ahead and defend his e-pawn without fear of losing his knight on d4, for it would no longer be on the board. How can you lose what’s not there?

  Student: If I’m remembering the last lesson right, this exchange represents an in-between move or zwischenzug.

  Teacher: Yes, it’s a zwischenzug, and it can be played without losing time because Black must use his next move to take back on c6. After Black does so, White has the freedom to go on with his game. He could then play 7. Bd3.

  Diagram 210. After Black takes back, 6 … bxc6.

  Diagram 211. After the actual 7. Bd3.

  Student: Hold on for a bit. I’d like to go back to the point where you recaptured with your b-pawn on c6 (diagram 210). That creates an isolated a-pawn for Black. I know we talked about a similar variation in an earlier lesson, but would taking back with the d-pawn, 6 … dxc6 (diagram 212), really be that bad here?

  Diagram 212. After taking on c6 with the d-pawn instead of the b-pawn.

  Teacher: Taking back with the d-pawn (diagram 212) would avoid the a-pawn’s isolation, but it would still lead to a problem.

  Student: You mean because White could then just guard his e-pawn, 7. Bd3 (diagram 213), without any hassle?

  Diagram 213. After 7. Bd3.

  Teacher: No, that would hardly be a problem for Black. But what would surely be a problem is the possibility of 7. Qxd8+ (diagram 214). After the forced 7 … Kxd8 (diagram 215), Black has then moved his king and lost the right to castle in the future.

  Diagram 214. After 7. Qxd8+, beginning a queen trade.

  Student: Let me stop you right there and rephrase my question. Even though 6 … dxc6 7. Qxd8+ Kxd8 (diagram 215) denies Black the right to castle, doesn’t it leave Black’s pawn structure a little healthier?

  Diagram 215. After 7 … Kxd8, losing the right to castle.

  Teacher: In a way, insofar as it keeps his queenside pawns together in one mass, on a7, b7, c7, and c6, so that they could conceivably defend each other. And it’s true that taking toward the center, 6 … bxc6 (diagram 210), would isolate the a-pa
wn, so that no other Black pawn could guard it, if protection were needed. But even so, it’s dynamically better for Black to accept this a7-weakness in favor of what he does get: the retained ability to castle on the kingside; greater control of the center, because he has more pawns attacking central squares; and a semi-open b-file that could then be used for attack, especially by Black’s a8-rook once it moves to b8.

  Student: Holy cow! There’s so much to think about.

  Teacher: Indeed. The trouble and the beauty of chess is that every reasonable move suggests a plethora of plausible responses, and it’s easy to get lost in unnecessary complications.

  Student: It seems to me that we’re constantly comparing things, even very small things.

  Teacher: We see which is better, and then we try to base our strategies on these comparisons. You’ve already seen how much chessplaying consists of weighing alternative possibilities that do essentially the same things, but slightly differently. We try to find the move that does the most and concedes the least. Practically 99 percent of our decision-making has to do with comparative evaluations. We’re always trying to tilt the board’s balance in our favor.

  Student: Sounds like the old game of pinball. Did chessplayers always think about chess this way?

  Teacher: Not really. It was the Viennese grandmaster Wilhelm Steinitz (1836-1900) who first hypothesized that the balance of power hinges on a delicate equilibrium of forces and elements. To achieve an advantage in one of these elements, Steinitz said, players have to surrender another kind of advantage of about equal worth. You simply can’t get something for nothing in a well-balanced chess game.

  Student: Really? What about if you win a pawn?

  Teacher: That’s a good question. Because even if you win a pawn, it could easily cost you several moves in development. You might have to move your attacking piece into position, capture the enemy unit, and then move your own unit back to safety. In those three moves, your opponent might be able to build an attack with his probable initiative. Other than your opponent overlooking something and giving you material for nothing, you can’t gain a material advantage without surrendering something. Usually, you have to cede a significant advantage in time, when time may be of greater importance than material.

  Student: It sounds as if various individual advantages go into determining the larger, total-position advantage.

  Teacher: Very true. Steinitz understood that the overall advantage is always dependent on a number of factors, both tangible and intangible. At any given moment, one may be more important than another. Advantages in material or pawn structure—the way the pawns are dispersed over the board, taking into account their weaknesses and strengths and how they create harmony or disharmony for the pieces—are tangible. Unless a major upheaval takes place, these factors are likely to remain unchanged throughout the course of a game. A lead in development, however, is transitory, or intangible. If you don’t exploit it immediately, your advantage is likely to evaporate once your opponent completes his development.

  Student: It seems that time is a critical advantage that can outweigh everything.

  Teacher: Time, or more specifically initiative, is a key factor, especially in the opening, when the game can sometimes be decided in ten or fifteen moves. White tries to convert his first-move advantage into something concrete by maintaining the initiative, and Black attempts to equalize by taking the initiative away. In the fight for the initiative, players sometimes make serious concessions by accepting weaknesses and conceding space, or committing themselves to risky material sacrifices, such as opening gambits of pawns and even pieces.

  Student: Okay, so how is a chess game won?

  Teacher: This may seem absurd on the surface, but if both players are making their moves with discrimination, neither one should be able to win merely by making direct forcing moves. For everything that one side can do, the other side has a counter-balancing action to keep the game in equilibrium. Theoretically, the game should be drawn. Of course, one sits down to win at chess, not to draw.

  Student: Actually, many players sit down not to lose.

  Teacher: And some of these may have lost already. Playing not to lose can certainly be a viable strategy. Still, most of the time we’re concerned with winning. To win, you must follow a course of action that increases your winning chances without incurring unacceptable risk. This is where Steinitz’s strategy of positional chess comes in. Steinitz advocated playing for small advantages—apparently so small and insignificant that your opponent either doesn’t see the threats or irreverently deems them irrelevant. None of these atom-sized advantages might mean very much at the time.

  Student: Yet if I understand you correctly, once you accumulate enough of them they may add up to a definitive superiority.

  Teacher: Indeed they may. If things have gone according to Hoyle, suddenly you’ll have a concrete edge that translates to a powerful initiative. Your opponent, to break this initiative, must in turn surrender something. Usually, this turns out to be material. Possibly, after you capture the material, the game will seem to return to a state of equilibrium, where neither player has an immediate attacking advantage. But there should be one telling difference: You should now have extra material—and, in a sense, you’ve literally stolen it from your opponent because you never had to make legitimate sacrifices for it.

  Student: Good, because I don’t like making sacrifices of any kind. But where do weaknesses fit in?

  Teacher: They can seem very small, but play your Steinitizian cards right and you might be able to build a mountain out of a molehill. Positional chess—Steinitzs brainchild—often focuses on weaknesses and their exploitation. In chess, however, there are really two kinds of weaknesses. One type involves points or sectors of the board that are tactically vulnerable because of particular and immediate circumstances. As such, they should not be evaluated as part of a long-term plan. Often they are based on temporary piece placement. Usually, you have to capitalize on such frailties at once to prevent your opponent from rectifying the problem by guarding the weak point or removing a threatened piece.

  Student: What’s the other type of weakness?

  Teacher: The other type of weakness is structural. Structural weaknesses involve badly placed pawns. In some cases, the pawns can no longer guard certain squares, either because they’ve advanced too far or because they’re unable to exercise their protective ability. They could, for example, be pinned. In other instances, the pawns themselves become nagging targets, difficult to defend. Because structural weaknesses tend to be of a lasting nature, they must be considered when formulating long-range plans.

  Student: When people talk about weak pawns, don’t they usually mean isolated pawns?

  Teacher: Yes. The isolated pawn is basic to the problem of structural weakness. An isolated pawn is often a disadvantage because it can’t be protected by other pawns and because the square immediately in front of it can be occupied by opposing pieces. Without a friendly pawn to the side to guard the occupied square, there’s no guarantee that an obstructing enemy piece, one stationed in front of the isolated pawn under view, can be driven away. Pieces able to sit in front of isolated pawns are called blockaders, and the concept is usually referred to as the blockade.

  Student: Could you show me a position with some different kinds of pawns in it, just so I can get a feel for what you’re talking about?

  Diagram 216. White has isolated pawns on e4 and g5; Black, on b6 and b7.

  Teacher: Consider diagram 216. It shows four isolated pawns: two for White, two for Black. White has isolated pawns at e4 and g5, Black, at b6 and b7. Black’s isolated pawns are doubled on the b-file and are called doubled isolated pawns. White’s doubled pawns on the b-file are not isolated because they have an adjacent partner on the c-file that, under the right circumstances, can defend either White b-pawn. Healthy pawns are represented by Black’s three on the squares e7, f7, and g7. They are connected pawns, situated on adjacent files.

&nbs
p; Student: Can we look at a blockade, too?

  Diagram 217. Black’s knight blockades the f-pawn.

  Teacher: Take a look at the position of diagram 217. It illustrates how a blockading piece, here the knight, can sit securely on the square in front of an isolated pawn, here White’s pawn on f4. To dislodge the knight from f5, White needs a pawn on either the e- or g-file. It’s not going to happen.

  Student: Can an isolated pawn ever be a good thing?

  Teacher: There are times when an isolated pawn, or isolani, can offer compensation. In fact, some openings are designed to produce an isolated pawn center. A player might accept such a pawn—normally a handicap—if he gets more space, control of useful strongpoints, or the opportunity to hamper or cramp the enemy’s position in the process.

  Student: I hope we can get to talk a little more about pawn features as we move on.

  Diagram 218. After the possible variation 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Bb4 6. Nxc6 dxc6 7. Qxd8+ Kxd8.

  Teacher: We can and shall, but let’s get back to our earlier analysis, to the point at which the queens could be traded and Black’s king would have to take back on d8 (diagram 218). If we imagine dividing the board in half between the queenside and the kingside, we notice that Black has four pawns on the queenside and White three—whereas White has four pawns on the kingside and Black three. On the queenside, Black has the extra pawn; on the kingside, it’s White with the extra pawn. It turns out, however, that Black’s doubled c-pawns reduce the value of Black’s queenside pawn majority. White’s three queenside pawns, with proper play, can hold back Black’s four queenside pawns. Meanwhile, White’s healthy kingside pawn majority should be able to eventually produce a passed pawn. In effect, it will be as if Black lost a pawn—without having actually lost one!