How do you deal with a pawn storm?

I was just wondering whether there is any standard rule or widely accepted technique for stopping a multiple pawn attack on your king.  Does anyone know of one?

Get to his king faster? I'm assuming that you're talking about pawn-storms with opposite side castling - in these cases, often the one to get to the other king first (with a coordinated attack) has the best chance. 

Thanks for your response.  I guess it turns into a race if you are castled on opposite sides!  Actually, I just had a situation, where I was getting ready to castle, and a pawn storm attack began on my kingside, I suppose in anticipation.  Not wanting to walk into trouble, I castled to queenside instead. 

If they're attacking on the wing before the center is closed, counterattack in the center. It encompasses more of the board and often will take precedence over wing action. If Kings are on opposite sides, it often is just a race. Don't start making moves trying to "stop" the storm unless they really do "stop" it for a long time, otherwise you're just focusing all the play in an area where you're worse.

+1

Lots of excellent advice.  I learn more all the time.  Thanks everyone.

Counterattack with necessary defensive moves, at the right time, is the strongest response at a very high level I guess.  I don't think that really says much, but this super grandmaster says so in this book I"m reading : ).

Sounds like the Kasparov thinking method;

1. Find the best move.
2. Play the best move.

As a follow on from the above can it be said that it's a bad idea to initiate a pawn storm if the centre is open and/or easily counterattackable or is it something you need to calculate to see which will hit first similar to the oppositely castled kings situation? 

+2

Basically, are you saying that you need to counterattack?

In the King's Indian, Black might launch a pawn storm against the white king when both sides are king side castled. The recommendations for white are (i) to avoid playing e5 so the black f pawn doesn't storm forward, with his mates. (ii) if the storm comes, white attacks on the queenside and gets his pieces "round the back" to attack the black King.

FIDE Master Graham Burgess calls the King's Indian, "a cross betwenn all out warfare and a fairyland..."

P.S. Here the centre is closed by pawns occupying the key diagonals.

It is not just about counter attacking in most cases its also about cordination.

You attack on the side that favors you in space. Better cordination leads to better attacks.

If the center of the board is locked than you have no were esle to play but on either kingside or queenside.

Usually you will play were your pawn chain points. So if your opponents pawn chain points kingside. He will have to play kingside your best counter attack(space) would be on the queen side.

The reason why is becuase of space. You want to play on the area of the board you have the most space. The more space you have more squares your pieces can move to. Helps you cordinate attacks faster. Cordinated attacks are always deadlier than uncordinated ones.

If the center is not locked. An you have some space in the center than usually people play in the center to refute there opponents side attack.

Very good advice from several players here!

Pawn storms are rare - they don't usually fall from the sky, and one is going to hurt you, but billions raining down is another story, so I'd hold up a chessboard to protect oneself, however, you must be careful, because if they start sliding down the board to the 8th rank, they will then be promoted to Queens, and one may suffer some very serious injuries - possibly even Queened to death!

I've played games where I've castled into a fienchetto structure and they then go and castle queen side and pawn storm you and totally rip open the kings defence. It does work sometimes. There are two reasons why I'm going off castling into a fienchetto structure 1) because of this and 2) if you lose that bishop there is a serious square weakness.

If the centre is locked, do you counter attack on the opposite flank?

There's a funny book, "Chess: A Psychiatrist Matches Wits with Fritz" by Ernst Pecci, in which he was able to consistently beat an old version of Fritz by locking the center and setting up a kingside pawn storm.

You can see the games here: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1426348

Fritz was doing the right things -- breaking up the center, counterattacking, etc. -- but it was underestimating the danger of the pawn storm as it advanced and was reinforced by Pecci's pieces.

If you're curious about pawn storms, you could do worse than go over these games with a current engine and watch the scores swing into the red as Pecci closes in on Fritz.