this interests me very much and thank you for the invite. I will be getting this book soon and look forward to these discussions. I have always thought that many of my end game losses are due to poor pawn structure (which could have been avoided with better planning).
CHEERS !!
masteriain - Thanks for joining the PSU, and this study group! Looking forward to reviewing some good games from the Marovic book and hearing what you have to say about them.
We don't have enough interested players to get started yet, but here is the first game we'll be analyzing:
FYI - Marovic has commentary to review relating to pawn structure strategy after moves 5W, 10W, 10B, 12W, 13W, 13B, 15B, 16B, 25W, 28B, 32W, and the end of the game. Very instructive!
When we have 6 or so players, we'll get started with the study group. My plan is to:
1. Have us each play through the game as if we were playing the side of the winning player (Alekhine, in this game).
2. Try to guess each move Alekhine made. If you guess right, give yourself 3 pts. The chessgames.com "Guess the Move" utility will automate this process for you, automatically scoring the game. Or, just keep track on paper. We'll report our scores in this forum to give a little incentive to try hard (and learn more!).
3. Review the Marovic commentary, and make any comments about the game - what you learned, what you thought, how you did.
I'm looking forward to getting started!
ECHOOooo.....
I also feel I need to know more about pawn play.I anticipate that this study group will help me in my quest.
I belong to a small chess club and have often thought it would be interesting to find common pawn structures and then have everyone play them to explore the possible outcomes. And, then to determine the best way to play those positions. As a very simple example, many people do not know when a lone king can force a draw against a king and a pawn.
I hope I didn't get too carried away with my entry.
Just in case it got lost in the fog, I'd like to join this study group. I'll get the book.
OK. So if I am looking at this game and want to study the pawn structure I have to remember that black is the winner. Therefore, it is black's pawn structure that we are interested in. Right?
Well...yes (and no). When you play through each game, I ask that you take on the role of the winning player (black in this game) and try to guess each move he makes while being cognizant of the various pawn structure changes. Most of the commentary by Marovic relates to descriptions of black's pawn structure, particularly how it transforms from one general type of structure to another on various moves, and the strengths and weaknesses of the before and after structures. However, he occasionally comments on the other player's structure, too.
OK! I think that's about what I meant. I don't have the book yet but am supposed to get by it the end of the week. Then I can see what Marovic has to say.
I finally found the time to play through game 1: Euwe vs Alekhine, scoring 56 (vs par of 69) in the chessgames.com Guess the Move training tool. I have to admit that I didn't recognize the pawn structure influences while playing through the game - even though I was trying to concentrate on those attributes. I'll review it again, reading Marovic's commentary to see if he can enlighten. Perhaps I can find some "puzzles" to pose from this first game to stir up some interaction in this study group. Hopefully, this type of study will eventually give me a better feel for pawn structure statics & dynamics - something I'm obviously blind to at this point!
I've worked through part of the game. I think the point Marovic is making is that an isolated pawn need not be considered a loss. At the same time, I think one needs to be careful to expect the same kind of success Alekhine had. He had a lot of pieces in the right places so that his isolated pawn was able to create quite a disruption to Euwe's game. I don't feel Marovic dealt a lot with ideas on the rest of the pawn structure.
Game 1, Quiz 1: What surprising move did Alekhine (playing Black) make in this position:
If you would like to particpate in this study group, then please try to solve this first quiz and reply to this forum with a response that indicates whether or not you solved the puzzle. For now, try not to post any spoilers. If we start to get some participation, I'll continue posting other quizzes based on this first game and Marovic's commentary.
got it! I read it in the book.
I know we are trying to study the pawn structures in this game but I think there are some other considerations here. Alekhine could not have exploited his isolated pawn if Euwe had not made two mistakes in his first ten moves.
First mistake: He moves his knight to e2 (it should have been moved to f3) on his fifth move. Marovic assumes he wants to prevent or avoid having doubled pawns caused by black's dark bishop to take his knight on c3. This is an illogical assumption by Marovic for two reasons. First, Euwe can only prevent doubling his pawns by protecting his knight with his bishop immediately. Otherwise, Alekhine can take his knight with a second bishop move thereby doubling the pawns. Second, Euwe makes an intermediate pawn move so that he can move his knight to e2. If Euwe wants to prevent doubled pawns, he must do something immediately...not wait an extra move.
Second mistake: Euwe moves his knight to g3 on his eighth move. Of course he would not have made this mistake had he made the correct knight move in the first place. (Moving to the wrong square and then moving the same man twice in the opening. Not necessarily wrong but certainly something we usually preach against.) Had Euwe made the correct knight move initially, he could have moved his light bishop to e2 to allow him to castle on his next move (if he wanted to).
Note that with the king's knight on f3 and the king's bishop on e2, Alekhine cannot make his tenth move [edited out to remove the move] because the square he wants to move to will be guarded by both a pawn and the king's knight. The isolated pawn attack only works because white's king's knight is on the wrong square.
So, let's relate all this to isolated pawns. Alekhine recognized that Euwe had made a mistake. Perhaps he even goaded him into it with his (3...Bb4) because he had studied Euwe's games and knew Euwe would try to protect against doubled pawns with his king's knight. I think it is obvious that Alekhine was not trying to double Euwe's pawns or he would have taken the queen's knight with an immediate second bishop move. Note that he retreated his bishop all the way to e7 when it was attacted in move (6 a3).
Back to relating...Alekhine knew what he could do with an isolated pawn in this situation and exploited his advantage. Euwe never saw it coming!
At the risk of sounding like I am bragging, I think I would have made the same tenth move that Alekhine did. But, to be honest, it would not have been because I knew what was going to happen. I just happen to be an aggressive player and that seems like something I would do. I would have done the right thing for the wrong reason.
I solved the Game 1, Quiz 1 from third try. That is onw way to say that I am in for this group.
OK. So I looked at my chess openings and see that Euwe and Alekhine played the Nimzo-Indian opening to the letter up to move 7 (so you can legitimately argue with me about whether Euwe made mistakes in his opening). Euwe's eighth move seems logical enough. He develops his king's knight to a better square and opens the diagonal for his king's bishop.
Now Alekhine moves his bishop's pawn out to c5 and Euwe initiates a second pawn exchange. Euwe is still OK at this pointt. But, he makes the mistake of either overlooking the isolated pawn or underestimating its danger. Euwe attacks Alekhine's bishop with his knight's pawn and Alekhine replies with his "surprise" move. This attack seems to be the mistake that Euwe made. The game is all but over as Marovic describes.
So the lesson to be learned is that isolated pawns should be given their due respect (however you do that).
solved it..
I would like to join, the book is in the post. The quiz is fine. I found the movement quite clear.
I find very strange that Euwe accepts to change the Tower for the White bishop on a very open board (2 open files and 2 semi-open files for black at the moment).
To rmreport :
The first 3 moves appears on several openings. Nimzo-indian is one, but it can go to the Queen's gambit (Ragorzin's) and a common answer is Qc2 and take advantage of the semi-open C file that appears in many of these lines and ensure that there is not doubled pawns.
I have found out that it is very easy to be move-ordered on this opening into trouble as you need to have quite a good understanding of what is going on.
I have tried as white to use the Nimzo-Indian, and I could not take advantage of the double pawns (even tripled in one game) on black side.
Thanks, gfollana!
I appreciate the input. I had written my first analysis prior to checking out how the opening is supposed to be played. You can probably tell that I am not a expert on openings. I certainly agree that a person needs a good understanding of what is going on. Not understanding frequently gets me into trouble with the little chess club I play with.
We'll continue our study of the Marovic "Understanding Pawn Play in Chess" book with Game 2 in a separate forum post. By creating a new forum post for each game, I hope to keep this first thread alive for later members to enjoy, work through, and comment. If you are new to our study group, please feel free to join in from the beginning (this posting) or any of the later postings as we move through the book. Here are the current "lessons"/games from this book (I'll try to update the list as we go along):
The purpose of this study group is to study the book "Understanding Pawn Play in Chess" by Drazen Marovic. Here's a short synopsis of the book:
"Experienced grandmaster and trainer Drazen Marovic elucidates the pawn's multi-faceted nature. By investigating high-quality games from grandmaster practice, he provides the reader with an armoury of pawn-play concepts that will help him or her to make the right judgments at the board. Chapters include: Isolated Pawns, Hanging Pawns, Passed Pawns, Doubled Pawns, Backward Pawns, Pawn-Chains, and Pawn-Islands."
From Marovic: "We shall learn from games remarkable for their clarity and simplicity of thought. First, we shall analyse them, see how the pawns fare in the circumstances and then draw some valuable conclusions. I believe it is indispensable to analyse the phenomenon of pawn-structures, especially those in the centre, on the central files, on the basis of whole games, because only then is the whole process in front of us: we see how the structures are brought about and what becomes of them, and the causes behind the process. The result is inevitably rewarding: we can grasp the general lesson on the subject."
The book is essentially a compendium of about 100 full games analyzed from the perspective of pawn structures and pawn play. The book is available from Amazon.com at this link:
Understanding Pawn Play in Chess
It won't be strictly necessary to purchase the book. I hope to find and post in this forum the PGN files for most games we analyse from the book so everyone can participate via their own analysis of the games. But the most benefit will occur if you purchase the book so you can see Marovic's commentary.
Please reply to this posting if you wish to participate in this study group. Once we have a half-dozen or so participants, we will begin our journey.