Chess Bounty Hunting

Chess is a thrilling game. Even more so when you are chasing down targets in your opponent's base. Some of us always go for the king, which is fun, don't get me wrong, but sometimes the best way to hunt the king is to hunt its army. Here is how to bounty hunt in chess. 

Weak Pawns

Pawns are often easy targets that come from a broken pawn structure. There are two main types of weak pawns:

Isolated pawns have no supporting pawns on the squares next to it. Thus, it can only be protected by full pieces, and can consequently be threatened by opposing pieces easily. Having a pawn behind it doesn't help either; this called double isolated pawns.

Backward pawns are the pawns at the bottom of a pawn chain, so they do not have any pawns supporting it. While these pawns are usually harder to capture, doing so often lets you rip the entire pawn chain to shreds. 

You should always be in the lookout for these types of pawns, and if you find one, gather your pieces and attack it. Can you identify all the weak pawns in the position below?

There are technically 5 of them in this position, a7, d3, g2, and g7 (backward pawns), as well as a3 (an isolated pawn). If you missed one, that's fine; target consciousness develops naturally. 

Here are a few tips for attacking a weak pawn:

• Try to find pawn breaks to make a semi-open file - Rooks are the best attackers of weak pawns, and it's easiest to do this when there's a semi-open file leading straight to the target. Once this is done, stack the rooks and pile on the pressure!
• Exchange minor pieces - When one of these pawns are present, especially an isolated pawn, minor pieces offer dynamic compensation to the defending side. However, if you do not have a semi-open file to attack the weak piece, keep some minor pieces so that you can still pressure the pawn.
• Look for pins - In many scenarios with a weak pawn, there's a rook on either side. This can often make a pin on the pawn, weakening it even more! If the pawn is tasked with protecting something, it might not be well defended...

If you're on the defending side, just do the opposite of the tips above. Avoid a semi-open file, don't exchange minor pieces (exchange rooks!) and prevent potential pins. Keeping the tips above in mind, let's look at the position from earlier. Can you find the best plan for Black?

Great job! As you could see, doubling the rooks really put pressure on the weak pawn. To achieve a dream setup against an isolated pawn, you'll need to trade off minor pieces and build a battery with you queen and rooks. The queen is helpful in endgames so that it's too dangerous for the opposing king to come and help defend the pawn.

But for an ideal setup to work, you'll need a second weakness. A player can usually defend one weakness pretty well, but adding a second one will be too much for them. This is the Principle of Two Weaknesses. 

Here's a position that demonstrates this perfectly. Black has a backwards pawn on d6, and he's doing everything he can to defend it. White has pressure on it, but he's unable to break through. Can you find how to make another weak pawn?

Awesome! Pawns are usually the most convenient target, but sometimes you'll need to look outside the box. Or inside the box?

Weak Squares

A beginner may understand nabbing a pawn or two, but they'll have a hard time grasping the concept weak squares. You don't capture anything, and they aren't worth a single point. However, having pieces on strong squares is a valuable asset during a game.

Whenever you find a weak spot in their defenses, you should immediately try to find a path for your knight or bishop to get there. But what counts as a weak square? Ideally, it is...

• close to or inside enemy territory.
• unable to be kicked by an enemy pawn.
• protected by one of your pawns.

The last two don't always have to be true, but they make the square more useful. When used correctly, a knight/bishop on one of these squares can help you goals and cramp the opponent. Below is a position from How to Reassess your Chess. Similar to in the previous section, can you find all the weak squares? (Bonus: can you find the weak pawns?!)

If you found all of the weak squares and all of weak pawns, that is very impressive since there are 8 weak squares (b6, b5, b4, d5, e4, f5, and h5) and 5 weak pawns (b7, b3, d6, f2, and h2). It is definitely harder to spot weak squares that are already occupied (like e4). 

Here are some ways that weak pawns can spawn:

• Backwards pawns: If there's a backwards pawn, then there's almost always a hole in front of it. Putting a piece in this spot has the added benefit of stopping a pawn break!

• Pawn breaks - Not only can these result in weak pawns, they also have the side effect of weak squares! Losing pawns always ends up weakening squares.

• Extended pawns - Everyone loves grabbing space with pawns, but did it ever occur to you that this could be a bad decision? Every pawn push leaves weak squares in its wake, so the more you push your pawns, the more weak squares you could potentially have. For example, White has a lot of space in the center of the position below, but c5, d4, and f4 are consequently very weak.

Now what should we do in the first position with many holes? Well, although the knight on d5 looks like a monster, it's blocking the rooks from attacking d6. That brings us to another important point about weak squares: If the piece on an outpost is not doing anything, don't use the outpost!

So the seemingly powerful knight is actually an obstacle for its own team. Remembering that d6 is weak, can you find what to do?

Whether you're playing a sharp, tactical game or a quiet, positional game, keep a keen eye for weak pawns and squares. To end off the blog, here's a tense game with that displays target consciousness, or what I like to call, bounty hunting.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed.