Pawn storm

A pawn storm is a chess strategy in which several pawns are moved in rapid succession toward the opponent's defenses.[1] A pawn storm usually involves adjacent pawns on one side of the board, the queenside (a-, b-, and c-files) or the kingside (f-, g-, and h-files).


Examples

A pawn storm will often be directed toward the opponent's king after it has castled toward one side (e.g. Fischer–Larsen, 1958[2]). Successive advances of the pawns on that side might rapidly cramp and overwhelm the opponent's position.

Fischer vs. Petrosian, Yugoslavia 1959
abcdefgh
8
8
77
66
55
44
33
22
11
abcdefgh
Position after 43.Qc4[3]


A pawn storm might also be directed at queening a passed pawn; the diagram is taken from a game in which Tigran Petrosian was playing the black pieces against Bobby Fischer. Over the next fourteen moves, Petrosian storms his twin pawns down the a- and b- files, forcing Fischer's resignation.

gollark: NOBODY can comb MY hair.
gollark: brb, replacing my hair with extremely small bombs.
gollark: Airport security would be marginally better if they at least had EXPLANATIONS for things.
gollark: What if the clothes are BOMBS?
gollark: Oh, and aeroplanes are somewhat less dangerous than cars, so if you discourage people from using airports via airport "security" and make them use cars instead, you're sort of causing additional deaths.

References
  1. Pandolfini, Bruce (1995). Chess Thinking. Simon & Schuster. p. 179. ISBN 0-671-79502-3. Pawn storm.
  2. Fischer vs. Larsen, 1958 Chessgames.com
  3. Fischer vs. Petrosian, Bled-Zagreb-Belgrade Candidates (1959) Chessgames.com


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