Steinitz Part 1: H-Pawn Attack!

Part 1: H-Pawn Attack

William Steinitz (born Wilhelm Steinitz, May 14, 1836 – August 12, 1900) was an Austrian and later American chess master, and the first official World Chess Champion, from 1886 to 1894. He was also a highly influential writer and chess theoretician.

It is now impossible for me to summarize great chess players of history into one single mindmap and thus I shall embark on a journey of dividing the individual chess players ideas and methods into part. Steinitz will be a larger project as a lot of his positional ideas need to be explained. Nonetheless we will start with one of his simplest ideas, namely the attack on the Fianchettoed Bishop setup with a h-pawn advance.

Example 1:

This is a highly instructive game on how Steinitz played with the h-pawn attack.

Aspects

• h-Pawn Attack
• Open h-file
• King Hunt
• Dark Square Weaknesses

Example 2:

Here Steinitz uses the exact same idea. It is instructive in this game how Steinitz prolongs castling in order to build the attack the right way. This is the first model gam of Steinitz famous technique of building the attack he so famously used later on in his career against the greats.

Aspects

• h-Pawn Attack
• Open h-file
• Dark Square Weaknesses

Example 3:

Here is a modern game. The h-pawn attack is used again and the seed plown later reaps white a vitory.

Aspects

• h-pawn attack
• Attack on two sides of board
• Activity above material

Summary & General Discussion

• The h-pawn attack is a good method for attacking the fianchetto setup. It allows white to give minimal risk to his king position while breaking up the opponent's strong setup. 
• A similar attack is seen in the Yugoslav Attack in the Sicilians, generally the h-file opens and can have devastating consequences for the opponent.
• In order for the flank attack to work, complete control over the center must be obtained.
• The attacking side should try and exchange off the strong opponents fianchettoed bishop in order for the dark (or light) squares to become weak.
• The h-pawn might result in a later pawn passer which in conjunction with a queenside pawn passer could earn the point.