Majority Rules

This article is by WIM Alexey Root

 Many times, in beginner chess games, pawns are like children running around a playground. Each child (or pawn) does his or her own thing without any idea of where they are going .

There should be rules for group activities, to help organize the playground children... Consider some guidelines for pawns too! Pawns should, as we learned in Preschool Pawns, stick together. As we saw in Gingerbread Pawns, promoting a pawn may win a chess game.

Follow the "majority rules" (explained in the rest of this article) when you have more pawns than your opponent on one side of the board. A majority may mean having four pawns to your opponent's three pawns on the kingside. Or you might have three pawns to your opponent's two pawns on the queenside. A majority usually means just one more pawn on one side of the board.

Throughout the game, your pawn majority can attack pawn chains. Attacking the base is the best way to destroy a pawn chain. Likewise, chop down a tree near its roots rather than high up in its branches.

"Majority rules" have many options. In the middlegame, your pawn majority may stick together and attack the enemy king. In the endgame, your majority may create a passed pawn. Because middlegames turn into endgames, creating a passed pawn in the middlegame is sometimes important.

Use your pawn majority to:

1. Break open the pawn structure in front of the enemy king. Often, this is by attacking the base of your opponent's pawn chain.

2. Create a passed pawn.

3. Cramp the movements of your opponent's chessmen.

4. Make great tactics.

Grandmaster Josh Friedel accomplished all these goals in his fifth round game against Grandmaster Anatoly Lein at the 2009 North American Open. Friedel played white in the game. Here is a photo of Friedel.

77-year-old Grandmaster Anatoly Lein had the black chessmen against Friedel. Here is a photo of Lein.

The diagram below has the whole game, but please look at move 30 onwards for my comments about Friedel's kingside pawn majority. I don't comment on Lein's pawn majority. Lein's pawn majority is on the queenside, and he creates a passed pawn (on the a-file) with it. But Friedel's kingside pawn majority wins the game, so that's what I annotated.

 

If you have more pawns on one side of the board than your opponent, use those pawns to break open your opponent's pawn structure. Your pawn majority may attack his king, create a passed pawn, or set up a wonderful tactic. Then you can say that your Majority Rules!