Restraint: stopping pawns from advancing

In short

Pawns want to move forwards. A mobile pawn in the center or a pawn majority can cramp your position step by step. So look early at which of your opponent’s pawns want to advance. If you control the squares in front of them with pieces and pawns, you restrain them.

Nimzowitsch gives a fixed order for this, in short: restrain, blockade, destroy. To blockade, you place a piece directly in front of the pawn. Only after that do you attack the pawns that are held fast and win them.

Against a majority, restraint usually needs an open file and two blockading squares. Depending on which pawn advances, you blockade on one square or the other. You do not let a majority in the center get too far. Nimzowitsch wants to hold it fast while it is still in its own half of the board.

Restraint is not just waiting. For Nimzowitsch, it is the beginning of a slow attack. Pawns that can no longer move become weak over time. Then they become a target.

Start with lesson 32, where you slow down a majority in the center. Lesson 34 shows how to restrain a majority in time, and lesson 40 shows the mysterious rook move. In Johner against Nimzowitsch, Black restrains the white pawns on the kingside and then attacks. In Shoosmith against Nimzowitsch, Black fights against a mobile pawn in the center.

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

Forms of restraint

Against a mobile white pawn on e4, Black places pawns on d6 and f6. The pawn on e4 then stands between them as if between the teeth of a saw. Nimzowitsch calls this the saw position.

Further steps follow. A rook presses against the pawn. The pawn becomes backward or isolated. Then a piece blockades it, and in the end it falls. This is difficult, Nimzowitsch says, but instructive.

You must also restrain a qualitative majority. Here both sides have the same number of pawns, but one side’s pawns advance more easily. You can restrain a freeing pawn move with the mysterious rook move, for example. Against doubled pawns, restraint is especially effective.

The blockade as the goal

In “The Blockade”, Nimzowitsch sums up his teaching in one rule. Restrain every pawn that wants to advance, every mobile center and every majority. Begin with mild means and become stricter later.

For him, the highest goal of all restraint remains the blockade. He sees strategy as a whole as a struggle between mobility and restraint. How to blockade is explained in the article on the blockade.

What holds today

Today, too, the rule is: a mobile pawn mass is dangerous, and it is better to slow it down early. The actual position determines whether to restrain the pawns, blockade them or launch your own attack. Nimzowitsch’s order is an aid to planning, not a law.

Where to find it in Nimzowitsch

• My System: II. Teil, 2.3 Hemmung. Die „mysteriösen“ Turmzüge original text not yet published

  Restraining freeing pawn moves: genuine and false freeing moves, and the mysterious rook move.

• My System: II. Teil, 2.4 Die Ur-Zelle der gegen eine Bauernmehrheit gerichteten Hemmungsaktion wird in Reinkultur vorgeführt - Der Kampf gegen eine Zentralmehrheit - Die qualitative Mehrheit. original text not yet published

  The basic pattern of restraint: an open file and two blockading squares, plus the qualitative majority.

• My System: II. Teil, 2.5 Die verschiedenen Formen, unter denen die Hemmung aufzutreten pflegt, werden näher beleuchtet original text not yet published

  The forms of restraint, the saw position and the order restrain, blockade, destroy.

• My System: II. Teil, Partie 28 (original text)

  Three games for the chapter; Johner against Nimzowitsch shows complete restraint that turns into an attack.

• Chess Praxis: 2. Hemmung und Blockade (original text)

  Introduction to restraint and blockade: restraint is the first stage of the blockade and part of a slow attack.

• The Blockade: Abschnitt XV original text not yet published

  End of the book: the rule to restrain every mobile pawn mass, with the blockade as the goal.

In the course

• The majority in the center
• Restraining in time
• The mysterious rook move
• Johner – Nimzowitsch, Dresden 1926
• Shoosmith – Nimzowitsch, Ostend 1907