How to Create Artificial Outposts
To understand the idea of an artificial outpost, one must understand what a regular outpost is.
An outpost is a square in the opponent's camp that can't be controlled by a pawn, which means any piece there has to be removed by an enemy piece.
This is good for the knight because removing a knight with a piece in a favorable trade is difficult. It has to be done with another minor piece.
An artificial outpost is a square where the opponent can attack the piece with a pawn, but that pawn advance is covered by your own pawn. While it's different structurally, and operationally, it is the same as a regular outpost. Let's take a look at an example.
In this position, white attempted to start an attack, but black put many pieces on g5 and shut that down. However, white did gain something from this operation; they created the artificial outpost on f5 for his knight. Black would seek to remove this knight with g6, but that square is under the control of white's h pawn. When g6 happens, white will just take it, and the knight will endure.
Let's call the square which a pawn would go to remove an outposted piece the kicking square. For example, for a white piece on d5, those squares would be e6 and c6.
The most common square for artificial outposts is on c4 for white and c5 for black. Often knights are effective on these squares, but an untimely b-pawn advance could force the knight into retreat. Therefore, the a-pawns bolster the knight by controlling the kicking squares b4/b5. Using the rook pawns to create an outpost have advantages over other pawns.
- The pawns are already defended.
- If the opponent decides to support and execute the b-pawn break, white can trade, and the file will open for the rook.
- The pawn can be pushed later in the game to create additional weaknesses for black.
We can also combine the a4/Nc4 setup with the stacked knight's formation to provide additional cover over the kicking square. A great application of these two ideas can be seen in the Scandinavian-Qd6 line.
Another common use of this idea is stabilizing a knight in the center.
Hopefully you have found this short expose on artificial outposts useful. I will be back soon with piece formations!
