Pawn roller: threatening, but often vulnerable

In short

Imagine two or three pawns advancing side by side in the center. Each step drives an enemy piece from its square. That looks threatening, like a roller that flattens everything. That is why the name pawn roller fits.

Nimzowitsch takes this power seriously. In “My System” he writes that a mobile center is full of pent-up energy. Sometimes a pawn of the roller even sacrifices itself so that files open for the pieces behind it.

Even so, he counts the low danger of the pawn roller among his revolutionary theses. What matters for him is how mobile the pawns remain. If the opponent can stop them from advancing, they become weak. If a piece stands firmly in front of them, their situation is often already very bad.

A pawn can never go back. Every step forward gives up squares that it can never control again. Nimzowitsch recommends first defusing the threatened advance. Only when the pawns can hardly move any more do you attack them.

Start with lesson 32. There you slow down a majority in the center before it advances far. Lesson 34 shows how to restrain and blockade in time. In Nimzowitsch – Löwenfisch, a white knight holds up three black pawns in the center.

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

Challenging the roller

In his game against Spielmann, San Sebastián 1911, Nimzowitsch put his knight on a delicate square early on. A white pawn could have driven it away with one step. Spielmann thought for a few minutes and decided against this chase. Nimzowitsch calls the game the origin of his thesis.

Tarrasch considered this knight move bad and warned against it. Nimzowitsch replied that such a chase after the knight only weakens the attacker’s position. Later, further openings grew out of this idea, for example from Alekhine and Bogoljubow. That is how he puts it in “Chess Praxis”.

Not every roller is harmless

Nimzowitsch expressly calls the roller harmless only under certain conditions. Already in the first part of “My System” he describes a free, mobile center as a very dangerous attacking weapon. It depends, he says, on whether the hunted piece still finds a foothold afterwards.

Even someone who can stop the roller has a hard time, he writes. It does not have to advance at once but remains standing as a constant threat. That is why he recommends holding your own center if this is possible without a disadvantage.

What holds today

Today, too, people play openings that deliberately challenge a broad pawn center. Whether the roller is then strong or weak depends on the concrete position. So always check whether you can slow its pawns down in time.

Where to find it in Nimzowitsch

• My System: Nachtrag, 2. Die revolutionären Thesen original text not yet published

  Nimzowitsch’s revolutionary theses, among them the only conditional danger of the pawn roller and the importance of the center’s mobility.

• My System: Nachtrag, 4. Weitere historische Kämpfe original text not yet published

  Spielmann – Nimzowitsch, San Sebastián 1911, as the first game on the thesis of the pawn roller, with Tarrasch’s criticism and Nimzowitsch’s reply.

• Chess Praxis: 6.1 Zur These von der relativen Ungefährlichkeit der Bauernwalze original text not yet published

  A look back at the thesis: further openings grew out of the 1911 game, and challenging the roller became widely known.

• My System: I. Teil, 1.6 Das Zentrum und dessen Demobilisierungswut. Übungsbeispiele: wann und wie ist das Vorgehen des gegnerischen Zentrums auszuhalten. Über Behauptung und Aufgabe des Zentrums original text not yet published

  The mobile center as an attacking weapon, the hunted piece and the advice to hold your own center if possible.

• My System: I. Teil, 4.2a Der erste Grund original text not yet published

  The pawn roller as a group of pawns advancing together in the center, full of pent-up energy and ready to sacrifice itself for open files.

• My System: Nachtrag, 3. Die revolutionäre Theorie wird in revolutionäre Praxis umgesetzt. Die Stammpartie des ideellen Damengambits original text not yet published

  Gregory – Nimzowitsch: the pawns of a mobile center are first defused and only then attacked.

In the course

• The majority in the center
• Restraining in time
• Gregory – Nimzowitsch, St Petersburg 1914
• Nimzowitsch – Löwenfisch, Carlsbad 1911
• Spielmann – Nimzowitsch, San Sebastián 1911