Using pawns to restrain and blockade

One of the first endgame tricks a chess player learns is the 'Deep Freeze', whereby one pawn restrains two.

Though this idea is quite well-known in the endgame, the concept of using pawns to restrict, restrain and blockade comes up even more often in the middlegame. Take the following common King's Indian Defence position:

Here's a game I played only last week incorporating this idea:

My opponent (who usually plays well, but was having a bad chess day) lost in 16 moves thanks to this powerful idea!

Here's an example from a famous grandmaster (to prove that strong players do this too):

(From Yasser Seirawan's book 'Winning Chess Strategies')

Here's the full game:

So we've seen the power of using our pawns to restrain the opponent's pawns and secure squares for our pieces. Now let's look at a game by one of history's greats to see how blockading the opponent's centre can lead to slow victory:

This game and the previous examples show the power of restricting your opponent using pawns. I hope you'll be able to use this idea in your own games!