Perfect Pawn Position

Just focusing on the pawns.  What is the perfect pawn structure you can think of? (You can only use your half of the board) support your reasoning.

I like this one because it has a nice stake to the center and the king is guarded from front and diagonal attacks.

But then you have an awfully weak d3

I think a straight line like this is the best since the leaves your pawn fluid!

something like tihs

TO Quote Phildor:

"Pawns are the soul of the game. They alone create attack and defense, the way they are deployed decides the fate of the game."

There is no "perfect/ideal" formation of pawns in and of itself.  The "perfect" formation is one which furthers an attack on the opponents position while permitting proper defense of one's own.  As such the pawn formation must be seen in relation to the opponent's position.

It completely depends on what other pieces are on the board. If it's just pawns, then it's a race to get a queen - "pawn position" doesn't matter, just try to move them forward safely!

If both sides have lots of pieces left, then the position you posted is terrible. White's king is in the center (bad!) and castling to either side would probably be unsafe. The d3 square is weak, and in fact white has lots of weak light-squares on the queenside. There are holes everywhere!

Basically, CarlMI is right. How "good" a pawn structure is depends on the position. Here is a pawn structure that is much, much better than the one you posted (assuming white and black have lots of pieces left and it's rather early in the game):

I would say the same as lanceuppercut, but with the c-pawn in c4.

there is no perfect pawn structor, it starts off with a weaness in the f pawn and c pawn for forks of Q\K and R so if you don't move then you have weaknesses.if you move a pawn to the fourth rank it can be attacked by the enemy and needs to be protected, it might be lost... if you move a pawn to the third rank you can sometime weaken the diagonal that it once stood on, like when moving b3 and making the knigside weaker and the a1-h8 diagonal troubleing if your bishop doesn't gaurd it.

if you move your knights your opponent can exchange them with thier bishops and make doubled pawns in your position. if you move the bishops you make a weakness in the b and g pawns that can result in losing a rook. if you move the rooks you create a weakness in the a and h pawns. of you don't move your peices you can lose the freakin' game.

if you castle in one direction your king can get trapped away from his defenders. if you don't castle your king is unsafe when the enemy peices march your way.

i got a bit carried away with this... but what i wanted to say is that the pawn structor can never be perfect, and should be just practicle. like this:

g

of course this may not be possible in most cases, and not very fitting too, in chess the two sides don't work together but against each other, so you can't do anything perdect, it can always be sabatoged by your opponent.

I like "The Wave":

This is a good one:

Lol, this totally depends on the position of the other pieces.

noobs

Oh dear, I nearly split my sides laughing - literally!  Thanks for brightening my day.

If you can only use your half then this is the most flexible and solid position I can think of...

Every pawn move creates strength and weakness.  The best pawn structure is whichever one maximizes the strengths and minimizes the weakness and this is all dependent on the placement of your oppenent's pieces.

:)