Knowing & implementing the best chess strategies is crucial to make your online game exciting, joyful, and effective. Understand a key strategy of getting clarity on the pawn structure of opponents below!
Good counterintuitive moves that are hard to find is the most exciting part about playing chess online! But before making any move, you should understand the opponent’s pawn structure in a better way. For this, you should learn about the various pawn structures, and influence the course of your chess game. When your opponent uses different pawn structures, you could deal with them effectively if you are good with positional ideas in the game.
In this game, your key ability is to understand when the opponent can or should risk the pawn structure of his own. Many chess players make the mistake of taking pawns very lightly. Remember pawns can be the soul of your chess game, if you use them appropriately. At the same time, your opponent could use the pawns to his/her advantage if you are not wary of the various pawn structures. A thorough understanding of these pawn structures (of your opponent) is what will empower you to take your game to the next level as you play chess online. This should be part of your most important chess strategies that you learn and implement during actual gameplay. Let us have a look at some critical pawn structures that you need to be aware of.
1. Passed Pawn
While you are likely to focus all your attention on attacking the queen or the king of the opponent, there are chances that you miss out paying attention to one of the pawns of the opponent that sneaks through and is about to reach the other end of the board for promotion. This can be really dangerous for you as it could enable the opponent to get a higher piece (bishop, rook, knight) in exchange for that pawn. Such a pawn that passes from the reach of all your pawns and which cannot be stopped on its way to promotion is termed as ‘passed pawn’. It could provide a decisive advantage to the opponent, especially towards the final stages of an online chess game.
2. Connected Pawns
While you may consider the pawn to be weak in comparison to other pieces on the chessboard, do remember that the count of pawns is too high and when they combine together, they can be a large force to reckon with. When pawns support each other such that they can protect each other, the pawn structure is referred to as ‘connected pawns’ structure. Your opponent could use this pawn structure to block your attacking moves and give themselves enough time to position their higher pieces to a position of attack on your kind.
3. Pawn Majority
One of the common chess techniques used by online players is to try and find an opening in your side of the board through one of the corners by using a battery of pawns. For instance, say you have two black pawns protecting your right side and the opponent slowly ventures into your territory with three or more connected white pawns, your pawns could be in trouble of getting outnumbered. In such a scenario, the opponent can possibly make use of the other ‘passed pawn’ structure and get promotion for one of its pawns. This could be really dangerous for you. So, keep an eye for such a pawn play by the opponent and take all necessary steps to prevent it from happening.
4. Backward Pawn
While we have discussed strong pawn structures above, the backward pawn structure is considered to be weak. And you can aim to take advantage of such a pawn play, where the opponent has connected pawns, but the pawn that is behind is in such a position that if it is moved one step ahead, it would get captured by your pawn. This is how you can nullify any advantage that the opponent tries to gain by making use of the connected pawns structure. Such a plan to make your opponent’s best chess strategy fail during gameplay could go a long way in you creating more opportunities to win the game.
Final Thoughts
When you play chess online, you need to pay as much attention to your strategies as to the strategies of your opponents. And having a solid understanding of the pawn structure of the opponent should be one of the key chess strategies that you should implement in every game you play. Try out an app like Rummy Bo which has been liked by many chess players! The above-discussed pawn structures can help you to gain an edge over your opponent and eventually enhance your opportunities to win the game of online chess.
