Today I am going to talk about probably one of my favourite positional factors: the outpost. I was unfortunately unable to find good games I played with or against some other types of pawn structures (maybe I might just look at closed centres and open centres as this), but often the outpost appears due to a weak square in the opponent's territory, and the best way to do it is to "plant" a piece onto that square, especially with a pawn supporting it. Often, a N is the piece which uses this outpost, but before we go into making an outpost, let's look into why it is such a great positional factor.
It is hard to find any weaknesses with an outpost, because often when your opponent captures the outposted piece, it could often just get replaced by another one with even less options into removing it! It also is sometimes just completely losing to capture the piece while the supporting pawn could capture and become a passed pawn. The best way to weaken outposts is often to undermine the defending pawns or defending pieces, but even so, it is hard to do so.
So, what are the benefits of an outpost then? In my view, outposts are just a completely one-sided positional factor for the following reasons:
1. The outposted piece restricts enemy movement
2. The piece also may prepare various useful squares to crush your opponent
3. Sometimes you can even create a passed pawn with outposts (sometimes, they are forced to take it)
In the position below, first identify black's weakest square in the position. Then find a way to exploit it:
As you can see, outposts are a great positional advantage to have as shown in the position above. However, do be wary of it getting undermined, but that is probably the only possible disadvantage if there is any.
Hi again,
Today I am going to talk about probably one of my favourite positional factors: the outpost. I was unfortunately unable to find good games I played with or against some other types of pawn structures (maybe I might just look at closed centres and open centres as this), but often the outpost appears due to a weak square in the opponent's territory, and the best way to do it is to "plant" a piece onto that square, especially with a pawn supporting it. Often, a N is the piece which uses this outpost, but before we go into making an outpost, let's look into why it is such a great positional factor.
It is hard to find any weaknesses with an outpost, because often when your opponent captures the outposted piece, it could often just get replaced by another one with even less options into removing it! It also is sometimes just completely losing to capture the piece while the supporting pawn could capture and become a passed pawn. The best way to weaken outposts is often to undermine the defending pawns or defending pieces, but even so, it is hard to do so.
So, what are the benefits of an outpost then? In my view, outposts are just a completely one-sided positional factor for the following reasons:
1. The outposted piece restricts enemy movement
2. The piece also may prepare various useful squares to crush your opponent
3. Sometimes you can even create a passed pawn with outposts (sometimes, they are forced to take it)
In the position below, first identify black's weakest square in the position. Then find a way to exploit it:
As you can see, outposts are a great positional advantage to have as shown in the position above. However, do be wary of it getting undermined, but that is probably the only possible disadvantage if there is any.