If you want to learn an opening, do you need to get familiar with the pawn structure?

I am asking this question because it is necessary to learn the pawn structure to get used to playing with it.

yea kinda

I think Andrew Soltis breaks down his pawn structure book by openings. Understanding the opening's pawn chains should really help.

read Pawn Power in Chess by Hans Smoch.

Hans Kmoch.

But yes. That book must have improved my playing strength by literally hundreds of points.

Not all at once. I had to read Kmoch's book, play, struggle, improve quite a bit... then read the book again, play some more, struggle some more... and improve even more.

I learned a lot from reading that book. two things in particular are:

a) pawn moves are permanent.

b) they are roadblocks that keep enemy pieces limited from entering your position and affect the placement and mobility of your own pieces.

yes

It depends on your rating range. I'd estimate about 1600+ chess.com rating should know about pawn structure and 1800+ really needs to know it for their opening. However, lower rated than this could still benefit from studying pawn structure, yet it isn't as required. At those levels, the player can still navigate fairly well just by identifying common motifs and patterns of their chosen opening.

It is also worth noting that some openings are way more theory intensive than others. If you play an opening like the Semi-Slav Defense or the Poison Pawn variation of the Sicilian Defense, then you really do need to know exact theory and move order. If you play other openings like the King's Indian Defense, or the London System, then it is more about which setup(s) you plan to play and learning the nuances of this more than exact moves or move order.

In general for all openings, you want to first learn the key ideas behind the moves. Pawn structure is an important element to understanding ANY chess position, but it also isn't the only element to consider.

Pawn Play and Structure - for Beginners and Beyond…

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/chess-books-on-pawn-play-and-structure

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell

The three most popular (and deservedly so) books specifically on Pawn Structure....

Pawn Power In Chess by Hans Kmoch (the essential classic - see my blog article)

Pawn Structure Chess by Andrew Soltis

Chess Structures A Grandmaster Guide by Mauricio Flores Rios

All 3 of these books are excellent for understanding pawn structures. For an intermediate player the first one I would recommend is Flores. He organizes the structures based on the openings from which they commonly result and clearly lays out the plans for both sides. After that, I would move on to Soltis. His book is not as well organized, but it adds some insights and examples on common structures beyond what Flores gives.

Kmoch's book is in a class by itself. I highly recommend it, but it's not an easy book. Once you have some familiarity with pawn structures from Flores and Soltis, it will take your chess understanding to a new level. Besides structures, Kmoch gives master class lessons on pawn play.

P.S. for @RussBell: My strategy worked. I put The Giants of Chess Strategy on my Amazon wish list, and my wife bought it for me for Christmas. Great book, and I managed to keep my vow not to buy any more chess books. Ain't life grand?

@OldPatzerMike -

I can't disagree with your perspective on the Pawn Structure books. In particular for the average amateur the books by Rios and by Soltis (in that order), followed thereafter by Kmoch's classic, which as you say, is a relatively challenging (albeit rewarding) read.

Glad to hear that you like The Giants of Strategy by Neil McDonald. He is an excellent chess book writer. McDonald explains things more clearly than most authors, particulary for the amateur readership. The book provides instructive analysis on the practical implementation of positional-strategic play by several icons, legends of the game - Kramnik, Karpov, Petrosian, Capablanca and Nimzowitsch.

I used to go round the local schools teaching chess through the Mike Basman youth program we always tried to get the kids playing as black either the Caro kann 1...c6, 2...d5 v whites 1.e4 or a French setup with 1...e6 2.d5 (Why!!) Because then they never had to worry about the cheapo attacks and mates on F7 Square, also we encouraged as white 1.d4 followed by 2.Nf3 with either a Cole setup or London, so they get used to a good basic pawn structure offering them safe sound basics to developers there game

Obviously. Otherwise after entering the middlegame you would be clueless about how to proceed.

Pretty sure the man's name, Kmoch, is pronounced Hmok

Just sayin'.

@16

It is pronounced "Kmokh" ([ˈkmox]). He was Austrian (born in Vienna from Czech parents and his name means godfather in Czech) but in 1932 fled to the Netherlands as he had a Jewish wife and in 1947 settled in the U.S.A..

@1

"do you need to get familiar with the pawn structure?"
++ Yes. Study whole games, not opening lines.

Thanks to all for recommendations of these books, I got them all in pdfs...just need time to read and study.