Isolated pawn couple: the rear pawn must advance

In short

The couple often arises from an isolani. White has an isolani on d4, and Black exchanges the knight on c3. The b-pawn recaptures. Now c3 and d4 stand diagonally one behind the other, with no pawns beside them on the b- and e-files.

For Nimzowitsch, the couple belongs to the isolani family. In “My System” he draws a family tree: from the isolani via the isolated pawn couple to hanging pawns. His game against Rubinstein from 1907 serves as an example, with the black pawns on c6 and d5.

Nimzowitsch gives the name only to the blockaded couple. Then the owner has to protect two pawns and at the same time has little room for the pieces. One evil makes the other even worse, he writes.

That is why the owner should do everything to let the rear pawn advance, that is, from c3 to c4. Then the pawns on c4 and d4 stand side by side, and Nimzowitsch calls them hanging pawns. They are mobile and constantly threaten to move on. For him, uncertain counterplay is better than a couple that only suffers.

For the opponent, the reverse is true. They hold the rear pawn back and put a piece on the square in front of it. Then the couple stays rigid, and the owner’s pieces are busy protecting it.

Summarized by the editors in their own words. This is not a quotation.

Two games from Nimzowitsch’s books

In a simultaneous game in Dorpat in 1910, Kudryavtsev and Landau had the pawns on c6 and d5 against Nimzowitsch. They did not play c6–c5, and Nimzowitsch soon put a knight on c5. In “Chess Praxis” he writes that his blockade held until the end. He saw the decisive mistake in the fact that Black did not form hanging pawns.

In the section on the couple, Nimzowitsch also shows the other side. In a consultation game in Copenhagen in 1924, he had White. His opponents fought stubbornly for the advance of their c-pawn and even sacrificed a piece for it. Nimzowitsch could not force a win, and the game ended in a draw.

To play through

In lesson 35 you decide for yourself in the position from Dorpat: wait, or push the rear pawn forward? Lesson 27 first explains the isolani, from which the couple often arises.

Today’s view

Today the couple is usually placed in the same family as the isolani and hanging pawns. Many coaches judge much as Nimzowitsch did: a mobile couple gives counterplay, a blockaded one is usually a burden. But the concrete position decides whether the advance succeeds.

Where to find it in Nimzowitsch

• My System: II. Teil, 3. Kapitel - Der isolierte Damenbauer und seine Nachkommenschaft original text not yet published

  Overview of the chapter on the isolani and the pawn formations that arise from it.

• My System: II. Teil, 3a Der isolierte Damenbauer original text not yet published

  The isolani in the middlegame and in the endgame; also the exchange on c3 to fix a pawn in place.

• My System: II. Teil, 3b Das „isolierte Bauernpaar“ original text not yet published

  How the couple arises, why it is weak when blockaded and why the rear pawn should advance.

• My System: II. Teil, 3c Die hängenden Bauern original text not yet published

  The family tree from the isolani via the isolated pawn couple to hanging pawns, shown in Rubinstein – Nimzowitsch.

• Chess Praxis: Partie 62 (original text)

  Nimzowitsch against Kudryavtsev and Landau: White blockades the couple on c6 and d5 until the end.

In the course

• The isolani
• Hanging pawns