Quote - ............. and of course it depends upon the environment,......... - End Quote
Regarding pawn opening moves ... 1 or 2 squares? That is the question.
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You can't analyze the value of moving a pawn one or two squares without the context of the game. There's no inherent value in a single pawn move outside of the board position.
Ok, so pawn movement is very limited in Chess, though on the initial move they have the option of moving foward 2 squares ... now let me ask you do you think moving a pawn forwards 2 squares is better than moving a pawn forward by 1 square, and how about we take two different scenarios.
1) In the first scenerio, each player secretly selects whether the first move for their pawns will be either 1 or 2 squares forward, and then the game proceeds as normal except that each play has denied themself one those two options for a pawns initiall movie (for example, a player could select that every pawn opening was to move it forward 1 square, or alternately to have it jump forward by 2).
... So what might you select in that case?
2) Ok, so in the second scenerio, you are wearing a mask and can't even see what game is being played and someone comes to you to ask for advice about whether they should move their pawn forwards by either 1 or 2 squares, and you are completely ignorant about the positions of the pieces or state of the board.
So, if you had to make a guess between moving a pawn forward by 1 or 2 squares in that case, what might you select?
To be honest, even though pawns are individually quite weak, we have quite a few of them, and honestly, I think much of the structure of how games of Chess are played is arranged around pawn structures and pawn openings how their lines evolve and influence the movements of other pieces can be quite significant ... a bit like how "The Butterfly Effect" implies that maybe even a small movement of the wings of a butterfly might have significant influences on the weather in the future
Ok, so this basically just two binary questions:
A) If you had to predetermine to do ALL your pawn opening moves as either moving for by one, or alternately two squares, which would you select?
and
B) If you had no idea about the state of a game and someone simply came to you to ask that you pick a random number 1 or 2, as to how many squares forward they should move their pawn in a game of Chess ... what would you select?
(A bit ironically I think that the two answers probably disagree ... but I am not 100% certain ... anyway, this was just something I figured to pass on for you to consider ... push a pawn forwards by 1 or 2 squares? and of course it depends upon the environment, but in general which might be a better option?)
Good luck etc. ...
Enjoy your weeks