Like a week ago i read a post asking what was better 3 pawns or a piece since theoretically the value its equal. well i just finished a game where this not so common event took place. hope you find it enjoyfull.

P.S: forgive my grammar/ortographic mistakes please and look at the move list for the variants.

3 connected passed pawns are just plain nasty and as they advanced, they should have been worth more than a piece and usually are.  I really did not like 42...Qg4 and would have tried keeping my queen in the arena.  My immediate (and blundering) instincts were 42..Qxa4 but such leads to a trapped knight after

43 Ra1 Qb4+ 44 QxQb4 NxQb4 45 Kc3  I would prefer either 42...Qd6 threatening f4 and controlling a3 with the thought of playing e5 later, swapping pawns and giving the knight some sort of access to e5, or 42...Qd8,   

 well here we have 3 passed conected pawns and there hardly anything they can do. and belive me i really spend some time thinking over this position before asking for the draw and im sure that my oponent did the same thing.

Escapest_Pawn wrote:

I really did not like 42...Qg4 ... I would prefer either 42...Qd6 ...

like i said on the anotations 42...Qg4 keeps the queen inside the enemy territory while taking it to d6 would be the same as just moving back imho.

 Thanks for yor coment anyway ^^.

Nice game and well played. I thought black did very well and wouldn't be critical of either side. White made an interesting desicion very early to castle long and sac the bishop for the passed pawns, in hindsight I think this plan was flawed as you went on to show. Perhaps white should of played 12.Be2 O-O 13.O-O and carried on a more conventianel  line but all credit to him for nice style!

I agree the game is drawn although if you were to play on I think whites f pawn can fall and blacks king can make progress although I can't see a winning advantage for either side.

So are three pawns better then a piece? Yes and No!! It depends on the position.  How strong is the minor piece being traded? Can the three pawns be connected? Can the game be simplified easily to make the pawns count? I'm sure we can find examples of both.

Thanks for sharing the game.

Did not intend to "correct" you as I almost certainly would have messed up this position.  But what am I missing? (and I usually miss something):

If 46 Ka2 (a better square than b2 I feel), then the advancing h pawn is more of a threat and you probably want your queen to help stop it. Qf3 is a lousy diagonal. Qf5 is better (I think, hoping for c5) but it is one of the few squares your knight can move to. And then I sort of like 47 Qf2 which covers some good squares.

To me, white unnecessarily had his b pawn pinned too often, and you could not get your knight to a good square.  This is certainly a fascinating position.  I think I am going to waste some time and put it in ChessMaster as it seems good at endgame pawn advancing positions and let it run against itelf from move 46 or so.

I just did several variations on ChessMaster 10 from move 46, all of which (much to my surprise) black won, the machine playing against itself with your queen in the h3 corner where, quite often, it was happy to stay.  Much to my surprise, it was invariably a mistake for white to advance his pawns. There were unexpected-- (by me anyways, computers tend to see such things instantly)-- knight sacs leading to winning the exchange after a few checks, or, of course mate.

In one variation, white almost queens after sacking his queen for black's rook and knight. Although I was completely wrong as I expected white to do better (actually win) if black stuck his queen there, white seemed to do better (he still lost but it took longer) if he followed my 46 Ka2 advice.  The computer also tried Kb4 which seemed to lead to a quick kill with one of the aforementioned knight sacs.

Basically, though, the conclusion I came to, was that white's inherant weakness was his overly exposed king and his often pinned pawns, permitting knight manuvers.  Secondarily, and not quite as important, were white not having time or the ability to get his rook and or queen behind his passed pawns.

I will attempt to share some of this, but I am simply out of time and will be for a few days.

I feel that your question, regarding sacrificing a piece for 3 pawns, depends on the condition that an endgame will occur.

If that condition were to be met, your sacrifice could possibly turn the tide in your favor, depending on positioning, what pieces were left and the circumstances during that game, in my opinion.

 :) 

 My question O_O?

I was referring to your thoughts  about the value of the pieces (and the game in question). Sorry, I read your first sentence wrong. I thought you were asking a question whether or not 3 pawns for 1 piece was worth exchanging and didn't understand that you were explaining that it was a thread you have read and it occured in your subsequent game.

I still stand by my point that leaving three pawns alone like that is dangerous and it is probably a good idea to eliminate them as soon as possible.