Advantages and Weakness

Advantages and Weaknesses

Increase Your Chess Understanding

In chess, there are many ways to claim an advantage, including passed pawns, open files and a lead in development. There are also many weaknesses, such as doubled pawns, a king stuck in the centre, and a loss of material. We will be covering all of these in this informative lesson.

Advantages

1. Passed Pawns
   1. Passed pawns are a threat to the opponent's position, as they can get dangerously close to queening, being difficult to attack because the pawns to either side of them have already 'passed', hence their name.
   2. Here is an example of passed pawns in a game.
2. Control of an Open File
   1. In chess, an open file refers to a vertical line of squares with no pawns on them. Control of an open file means that you have enough 'heavy pieces' (rooks and queens) that they can never be removed from the file.
3. Lead in Development
   1. When you have more pieces out in an opening, you have more control over the board. This is called a lead in development.

Weaknesses

1. Doubled Pawns
   1. Doubled Pawns occur when a capture is made which leaves two pawns on the same file. The problem here is that neither pawn can protect each other, and the position on that side of the board is weakened (allowing potential penetration later on).
2. A King in the Centre
   1. One of the most common opening concepts is to castle and protect your king from central onslaughts. This holds true mostly in open positions, where bishops and pawns are powerful and the centre is the main battlefield, whereas in a closed position (one in which the central pawns are locked in position with one another and cannot move) it is not as important, though if a quite moment occurs in the game it is best to spend it castling.
3. Loss of Material
   1. Loss of material is the most basic way to win, as the last lesson showed with White winning two pawns. Here are three basic ways to win material.
      1. Attacking a Pinned Piece
         1. A pinned piece refers to a piece which cannot move, due to a piece behind it (usually the queen or king) which would be attacked if it did. The Old Steinitz Defense is the most common opening pin and is more or less the fastest way to make one (with 1. e4 e5 2. Nf6 Nc3 3. Bb4 d3!?). When a pinned piece is attacked, because it cannot move, the attack must be removed or the piece will be lost.
      2. Forks
         1. A fork is where one piece attacks two pieces at once. The most common forking piece is a knight.
      3. Double Attacks
         1. In a double attack, one piece moves to expose another's attack, and also attacks another piece.

Test

e5

Before posting essays like this, please get better.

I have found this essay and the exercises very helpful. Thanks for having made the effort to provide and share these.

Thanks for this,many beginners will benefit from this,first puzzle i promise you many will takethe pawn.

You're either a subtle troll or very unlucky, litterally all your illustrations are wrong.

1. "Advantage, passed pawn" has little to do with the concept of passed pawn, rather with pawn and King endgame. In this case, taking the pawn is just as good as pushing it, it is a dead draw No king is in front of his pawn to queen it. By the way it also is a passed pawn after capturing as well.
2. "lead in developpement" is wrong on so many levels. First off, Black is doing ok in the opening, and is not especially trailing in developpement. He did some patzer inaccuracies, but so did white. He loses on a blunder, namely 15...Ne8 (your "what else?"), not because of "lack of developpement". Here is the correct response to 15.e5 :
   
   
   
3. "Control of open file", I haven't checked thougroughly but it seems white should just mop up the queen side pawns instead of blundering a paxn on move 8. Black's defense look very poor also.
4. "Weakeness Double pawns", Doubled pawn are not necessarilly a weakness, they can create local superiority, three pawns on two files still are better than two, and in that particular example, Black recapture toward the center. More importantly, he now has an open file.
5. "King in the center is completely wrong, going for the pawn instead of the free bishop is a complete blunder :

I'll go on the other later, but they are just as wrong.

This was quite a funny troll but I personally wouldn't waste so much time typing up a troll. I mean, trolling is quite funny but I also want to get better at chess.

It's like saying 1.a4 is the best move ever and giving this example.

See white wins so the ware opening is the best opening.

Yeah, I've been fooled by his low rating and by the huge amount of time he must have spent on this one, it was hard for me to believe he's a troll, but his profile leaves no doubt. Knowing it, it's quite funny and educational to look for what's wrong with what he says with his illustrations.

That game on his profile page was a true brilliancy. Even Tal couldn't have played better as white. Black should have just resigned.

lol

I wish I could take all the time he wasted typing this and use it for something useful.