General Pawn Center question

In many openings, Benoni, French defense (advance), Kings Indian defense, White pushes one of his two center pawns to the 5th rank in response to a central advance of Black.

Benoni:

French Defense:

In response to the Benoni, I used to never push d4, with the single-minded idea that pushing pawns loosens the center and wastes time I could be using to develop pieces.  However, obviously there must be times where such pushes are considered necessary, but I don't always feel confident about how to play my center pawns in cases like these.

Does anyone have general suggestions about these types of positions?

Pawn Structures.

 Pawns on d4-e4/d5-e5.

If you OWN the center:

You have to be able to consolidate the center from attack by suitable development.

You use the center to cramp the enemy development.

You have to be ready to advance the center at the right moment to start an attack.

If you are FIGHTING AGAINST the center.

You have to place your pieces aggressively to prevent consolidation.

You have to try to destabilize the center with appropriate pawn levers.

This type of center is strong only when it is sufficiently protected and potentially mobile.

The Open Center, Open e, or d file.

Deploy your pieces as actively as possible.

If you have an Isolated Pawn, you need to keep pieces on the board, and play actively.

If you are playing against an Isolated Pawn, you want to exchange pieces, and aim for an endgame.

Control the open file.

Half Open Center. Pawns on d4-e6, or e4-d6/e4-d6-e6.

Half Open Centers can lead to positions of imbalance.

Half Open Centers are not permanent and can change at any moment.

Deploy your pieces as actively as possible.

If you have a d6-e6 pawn structure, you must find a way to free yourself, or you will remain passive, and give your opponent the initiative.

The side with the advanced central pawn will develop his pieces actively and try and start an attack.

Blocked Pawn Center.

What are the guidelines for blocked pawn centers?

• Patience
• Pawn Breaks.
• What are the “good and bad” pieces?
• Exchanging the “bad” pieces.
• A good understanding of where the pieces should be placed.
• Blocked centers lead to flank attacks.
• Gain space, and attack.

Isolated Queen Pawn Centers.

Long term the IQP is a weakness, and the opponent should be thinking of the following:

• Active development,
• Blockading the pawn.
• Trading pieces, where the IQP becomes a weakness in the endgame.
• Generally defensive ideas – slow your opponent’s attack.

The side with the IQP, should strive for the following:

• Trade off the IQP.
• Avoid exchanges.
• Keeping the pressure off of the IQP.
• Active piece play.

Doubled Pawns.

If you have the doubled pawns:

Doubled pawns can be a weakness.  You want to avoid piece exchanges, unless it benefits you.

The side with the doubled pawns will often times have the bishop, or knight pair, which allows them to take advantage of a color complex.

Doubled pawns create half open files.  The half open file can be used for active piece play.

A center pawn push can eliminate doubled pawns.

A doubled pawn can be used to restrain the opponent’s pawns, and or pieces.

Maneuver your pieces to active squares, where they can limit the opponents piece activity, and control the square in front of the doubled pawns.

If you’re playing against doubled pawns:

Doubled pawns can be a weakness.  You want to initiate piece exchanges.

If you can, you want to freeze the pawns so they cannot move.  This creates targets to attack.

Hanging Pawns.

Hanging pawns are useful in the middlegame, especially if they can be pushed forward at the right moment with pieces behind them.

Hanging pawns tend to become weaker as pieces are exchanged and can be a liability in the endgame.

When you’re playing with hanging pawns:

• Keep pieces on the board.
• Start an attack.
• Advance the hanging pawns at the right moment, to unleash the power of the pieces behind the pawns.

When you’re defending against hanging pawns:

• Attack/Destabilize the hanging pawns.
• Force piece exchanges.

Pawn Chains.

An effective pawn chain can win a game for you.

Active piece play.

Attack the pawn chain at the base if possible.

Try and make your pawns work with your pieces.

Trade off your bad pieces for your opponent’s active pieces.

Use a pawn chain to gain space and cramp your opponent.

Passed Pawns.

Passed pawns can be used to tie the opponent down in the opening, middle, and endgame.

You always try to create a passed pawn in the endgame.

When you’re playing against a passed pawn:

• You want to try and blockade the pawn.
• Create counter play, by playing around the passed pawn.
• Passed pawns become stronger as the endgame approaches, so you want to keep material on the board.

When you have the passed pawn:

• You wat to advance the pawn, gaining space, and tying down the opponents pieces.
• Passed pawns become stronger in the endgame, so strive for exchanges.

DeirdreSkye (post #4), I found this game quite instructive for pursuit of your plans; With all due respect to the Black player here, White just destroyed them. As you mentioned earlier DeirdreSkye, White's Queenside attack is often much more devastating than Black's Kingside attack in these type of positions.

Thanks for showing the game: it is always nice to study games while focusing on a certain theme or motif that proves to become the critical factor (here this had to do with pawn structures and White's superior Queenside attack to Black's Kingside burst). 

IMBACON; thanks for the detailed post.  It's nice to see the ideas of pawn structures laid out, and certainly it is important to know those ideas to know how to play pawns in general.  I think what I'm less comfortable with is early game decisions on pawn play.  How do you know what to do with your pawns relatively soon in the opening.

DeirdeSkye:  Thank you for your reply! It's helpful to see the example.  I understand of course that white or black would want to know the characteristic plans for playing in a certain pawn structure before doing something.  But what I am really trying to figure out is how do people know to pick a certain pawn structure in the first place?  Can you pick whatever suits you?  Or are there cases where it is obvious you MUST push the pawn so that bad things don't happen to you.

For example, when I played against the King's Indian, I said to myself, "I like open positions, I'm just not going to push the pawn and let him take instead if he wants".  But most of the main lines in this opening seem to suggest this isn't the right approach.  Similar problem in the Benoni.

Thanks for your reply!

I don't understand what you mean here, are you saying choosing to push a pawn is a matter of taste in positions usually?

What people can offer me is intuition.  I want to develop better intuition about good and bad pawn play.  Some people seem to immediately know when they must push their pawns.  Of course I won't learn anything if I am not looking at specific games with those positions, but the fact of the matter is that when I look at a chess game, I am looking at it through my perspective as a weak player and probably can't always tell the exact moment when one player makes a positional mistake. 

I was hoping to get insight from players stronger than me in the methods they use to generally evaluate the openings.

I feel like later in the game, its easier to see mistakes and good moves, but in the opening there is a lot more guesswork.

"However, obviously there must be times where such pushes are considered necessary..."

I think you're looking at this incorrectly.  In the examples you give, they are all very early opening positions.  I believe if you think of it as "preference" instead of "necessity" it will clear things up. 

It comes down to what type of pawn structure are you more comfortable with?

IMBacon, you've nailed my confusion.  Is it really just a preference?  If so then I can be confident to do what I want to do and not really worry so much.  

In the French defense example, it is common to see both advance and non-advance variations (although I don't really know that opening very well)

However, in an opening like the Benoni, it seems that pushing is the norm and that most players would do it without hesitation.  So it seems like there are cases where its preference and cases where you are picking an inferior line if you fail to do a certain pawn push.

Hey, thanks Thoughtdancer!  Really helpful I will definitely take a look at some of those games. 

Jeeze... I'm disappointed.

I came into this thread thinking that "General Pawn Center" was a Russian military leader.

LMAO  General Pawn Center (GPC), General Troll Farm (GTF), GRU ... it sounds weird but so dangerously Russian.