Pawn Chain

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A Pawn chain consists of pawns placed on the same diagonal, without interruption, so that only one of them is undefended. That pawn is called a base of pawn chain. The player opposing the pawn chain should attack its base or else strive to exchange pawns being parts of the chain. The old chess theory warned against attacking the peak of the chain, but some lines of the French defense show that this strategy is perfectly applicable.

Chain Direction

As pointed out by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, the direction of a rammed pawn at least triple chain with its peak pretends the wing concerning piece attacks and king safety issues ¹. In the left diagram, omitting pieces but assuming middlegame, the black king should receive a penalty, in the color flipped position on the right, the white king accordantly ²:

Further, an open backward straggler is a weak base of the chain.

See also

• Connectivity
• Connected Pawns
• Pawn Pattern and Properties of the Bitboards pages

Defended Defenders inner pawns of a at least triple-chain

Not Defended Defenders the base of a chain

Not Defending Defended the peak of a chain

• Space

Forum Posts

2014

• 5 underestimated evaluation rules by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, CCC, January 23, 2014
• Huge simplification by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, CCC, April 25, 2014 » Stockfish

Re: Huge simplification by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, CCC, April 26, 2014

Re: Huge simplification by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, CCC, April 26, 2014

2015

• LCP by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, CCC, February 09, 2015
• pointy chains redux (part 1) by Carl Langan, CCC, February 20, 2015
• Longer chain pawn again by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, CCC, February 25, 2015
• pattern coding in bitboards by Pawel Koziol, CCC, February 26, 2015 » Defended Defenders
• Chain, duo, connected by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, CCC, May 02, 2015

External Links

• The d5 chain from Wikipedia
• The e5 chain from Wikipedia
• Janis Joplin - Ball and Chain, Monterey Pop Festival, June 1967, YouTube Video

Watch on YouTube

References