Isolated queen’s pawn: alone on the d-file

In short

Look at the d-file. If there are no white pawns next to it on the c- and e-files, a white pawn there is isolated. Such a pawn is called an isolani for short. On the d-file, the queen’s file, it is called an isolated queen’s pawn.

No pawn can protect it, and no white pawn can control the square in front of it. A black piece finds a safe place there, for example a knight on d5. Nimzowitsch calls d5 Black’s key point. From there Black holds up the pawn and directs the black pieces.

But the isolani also has power. It wants to advance, and it controls the squares c5 and e5. White pieces can stand there as outposts. A knight on e5 can put pressure on the black king together with the bishops.

In the endgame an attack on the king is hardly possible any more, and e5 loses value. Now White has to protect the isolani. The light squares d5, c4 and e4 are hard to control. For Nimzowitsch, the real weakness is not only the pawn but also the squares around it.

Start with lesson 27, where you place a piece in front of an isolani. Lesson 35 shows how an isolani turns into hanging pawns. In Nimzowitsch against Jacobsen, White plays against a black isolani. In von Gottschall against Nimzowitsch, the squares around a white isolani stay weak into the endgame.

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

If you have an isolani yourself

First build up solidly. Nimzowitsch recommends a bishop on e3 that protects the pawn on d4. He warns against early raids. If the opponent withdraws pieces from the kingside, you may attack, and then with sacrifices too.

He also recommends an exercise: play the same opening once with an isolani of your own and once against it. That way you feel for yourself how dangerous it is in the middlegame. And you notice how hard it is to hold in the endgame.

If you play against an isolani

Occupy the square in front of it and aim for an endgame. In “The Blockade”, Nimzowitsch even calls the isolani half a passed pawn, so strongly does it push forwards. The square in front of it is often a blockading square and an outpost at the same time.

You do not have to fix it completely, Nimzowitsch thinks. If you leave it a little room to move, the pieces protecting it easily get into trouble. In “Chess Praxis” he judges more strictly than in “My System”. Roughly speaking, he writes that the defense had made progress. The attacking power of the isolani had therefore become almost harmless.

What holds today

To this day, the isolani is one of the great themes in chess. Nimzowitsch’s assessment from “My System” still holds at its core. With many pieces on the board the isolani is often strong, in the endgame often weak. Whether it helps or harms is decided by the concrete position.

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 its descendants, the isolated pawn couple and hanging pawns.

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

  The isolani between static weakness and dynamic strength, with advice for both sides.

• Chess Praxis: 4. Der isolierte Damenbauer, die zwei Hängebauern Die zwei Läufer original text not yet published

  Example games on the isolani, hanging pawns and the bishop pair; here Nimzowitsch considers the attacking power of the isolani to have been defused.

• Chess Praxis: Partie 72 (original text)

  von Gottschall against Nimzowitsch: the isolani and the squares around it as a weakness in the endgame.

• The Blockade: Abschnitt IIII original text not yet published

  Why blockading squares are good squares, using the example of the isolani as half a passed pawn.

In the course

• The isolani
• Hanging pawns
• von Gottschall – Nimzowitsch, Hanover 1926
• Nimzowitsch – Jacobsen, Copenhagen 1923