Double Isolated Pawns
by Bogdan Girmacea
Double isolated pawns appear quite often in practice, that’s why I picked this subject. Generally speaking, double isolated pawns can be a strength and a weakness in the same time. Strength because they can control some important squares in the center of the board and a weakness because they can be easily attacked and their general mobility is somehow limited.
In most cases, the side that fights against double isolated pawns has to exchange pieces and to transpose the game into an ending where the weakness of those pawns can be exploited easier.
But in this lesson we will see the strength of double isolated pawns and how the side who posses them should play. I will present a famous game between Portish and Fischer, Tunis 1967, in which after 15 moves in King’s Indian defense the players reached position in following diagram:
1. Nf3 Nf6 2. g3 g6 3. c4 Bg7 4. d4 0-0 5. Bg2 d6 6. Nc3 Nbd7 7. 0-0 e5 8. e4 c6 9. b3 Qb6 10. Re1 Re8 11. d5 Nc5 12. Rb1 a5 13. Be3 Qc7 14. Bxc5 dxc5 15. dxc6 bxc6
(PGN file for download)
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