So when we push our Queen’s pawn
two squares forward, our opponent has a few options to counter this move.
Our opponents best counter would be to try and take this pawn,
but by doing so they’ll actually be creating some weaknesses on their board.
So when our opponent takes, we just take back the pawn with our Queen and end up in a
position like this.
To see where our advantages are here, and where to attack,
we need to look at the pawn structure for this position
We can see the pawn structure for this position by imagining just removing
all pieces off the board and leaving the pawns.
Since pawns are the least mobile chess pieces,
their positions are mostly fixed and determines where we should be attacking
So as White, this pawn structure is actually
great for us.
And if we could, we would actually want to force
our opponent into this pawn structure for other openings as well.
In fact, the idea behind most King pawn openings, (Scotch Game, Giuoco Piano),
the whole goal is get our opponent into a pawn structure like this.
Why?
So the first thing is, our opponent would actually have a bishop here
But because of this pawn
This bishop is blocked in and is
going to have a hard time getting free.
But the huge advantage we have here is actually this center pawn.
This center pawn controls these two critical squares
If our opponent is castled and we can get a Knight on this square,
we can wreck havoc on his kingside.
If he tries to push our Knight away with
his pawn
Our opponent will actually destroy all the dark squares
Around his King
And we will be ready with our dark squared bishop to
punish our opponent for making this mistake.
If we can force our opponent into this pawn structure, that’ll be
good for us.
By having such a strong pawn,
we need to use it launch an early attack against our opponent
By using these squares as outposts for
our pieces
Otherwise, as the game goes on, and more pieces are exchanged away,
our advantage will go away (since we will have less to attack with)
That also means that we should AVOID exchanges here.
With fewer pieces on the board, it’ll be harder to coordinate a
strong attack against our opponent.
