Pawn Structure

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Elke Rehder, Chain of Pawns

Pawn structure is a term used to describe the positions of all the pawns on the board, ignoring all other pieces. Pawn structure encompasses a broad range of ideas, from the general shape of the pawns (such as closed or open) to specific characteristics of individual pawns.

Hashing Pawns

see main article Pawn Hash Table

Full evaluation of pawn structure might be quite expensive. To speed up the evaluation, many programs use a separate pawn hash table, addressed by a special key derived from the pawn's (and possibly also king's) position. Since pawn structure changes rather slowly, hit rate for such table is typically above 95%. Anything strictly pawn related can be stored in this hash table, including pawn shield terms to be used dynamically for king safety.

Standard Terms

Single Pawn

• Backward Pawn
• Candidate Passed Pawn
• Doubled Pawn
• Faker
• Hidden Passed Pawn
• Isolated Pawn
• Passed Pawn
• Sentry

Groups of Pawns

• Blockage Detection
• Connected Pawns
• Hanging Pawns
• Minority Attack
• Pawn Chain
• Pawn Islands
• Pawn Majority

General

• Holes
• Pawn Center
• Pawn Race
• Weak Pawns

Dependent on Pawn Structure

• Bad Bishop
• Color Weakness
• King Pawn Tropism
• King Safety

Pawn Shield

Pawn Storm

• Outposts
• Rook on (Semi) Open File

See also

• CPW-Engine_eval
• Pawn Pattern and Properties pawn structure aspects concerning bitboards
  • Pawn Levers (Bitboards)
  • Pawn Rams (Bitboards)
• Strategy

Publications

• Hans Kmoch (1959, 1990). Pawn Power in Chess. 1959 McKay, 1990 Dover
• Andrew Soltis (1976, 1995, 2013). Pawn Structure Chess. Tartan Books, 1995 McKay, 2013 Batsford Chess
• Soei Tan (1977). Describing Pawn Structures. Advances in Computer Chess 1
• Danny Kopec (1977). Recent developments in computer chess, in Firbush News 7 Edinburgh: Machine Intelligence Research Unit, University of Edinburgh (ed. D. Michie), pdg
• Michael Goeller (2007). Pawn Battle Rules and Strategies.pdf
• Lyudmil Tsvetkov (2017). Pawns. amazon

Forum Posts

2000 ...

• how to detect information about pawn structure based on bitboard by Uri Blass, CCC, December 17, 2002
• pawn structure, pawn hash, square-of-pawn, pawn-races by Stuart Cracraft, CCC, August 19, 2004

2010 ...

• Double levers by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, CCC, June 11, 2014
• Some more pawns by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, CCC, August 31, 2014

2015 ...

• Binders by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, CCC, February 04, 2015
• En passant bonus by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, CCC, February 10, 2015 » En passant
• Pawn checks and center levers by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, CCC, February 11, 2015
• Kind of backward by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, CCC, February 13, 2015
• Double pawn push by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, CCC, February 14, 2015
• Lever evaluation by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, CCC, May 01, 2015 » Pawn Levers (Bitboards)
• Chain, duo, connected by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, CCC, May 02, 2015 » Pawn Chain, Duo Trio Quart (Bitboards)
• Some more pawns by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, CCC, May 03, 2015
• Assorted tweaks by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, CCC, May 08, 2015
• A possible new pawn structure evaluation term? by Árpád Rusz, CCC, October 15, 2015

2020 ...

• Pawn structure tuning by Vivien Clauzon, CCC, April 11, 2020 » Automated Tuning, Ethereal
• Re: Tcec season 18 by Warren D. Smith, FishCooking, June 28, 2020 » Pawn Center, TCEC Season 18 Sufi Game 63 10... c4

External Links

• Pawn structure from Wikipedia, pattern of common chess openings
• Positional Play : Pawn Structure by Mark Weeks

References

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