"[Pawns} are the very Life of this Game: They alone form the Attack and the Defense...". Many a contemporary chess enthusiast must have been amazed to read this solemn statement by Philidor, bestowing such honours on the modest pawns, of which Philidors's famous predecessors, Greco and the Italian chess school, thought so little.The first paragraph of Understanding Pawn Play in Chess is typical of the credit offered to Philidor for his innovative ideas presented through a handful of composed games that he published in Analyse du jeu des échecs (1849). Willy Hendriks challenges conventional understanding in On the Origin of Good Moves (2020). Consider these two positions from quizzes in Hendriks's book (25, 57).
Dražen Marović, Understanding Pawn Play in Chess (2000)
Black to move
Black to move
Both exercises offer the same choice: dxc4 or bxc4. There are three questions. How would you play each position? How would Greco play? How would Philidor? The answers may surprise you.
In a USCF online rated blitz tournament yesterday, I had this position.
White to move
I played the move that Greco would have selected. Ironically, this choice helped me play somewhat in the manner advocated by Philidor, but only after I spurned his general principle for pawn captures. I even sacrificed a knight to get my pawns rolling.
The short version of what On the Origin of Good Moves has argued through the first four chapters is this: Greco is somewhat underrated by chess writers and may be worth more attention. Philidor, on the other hand, gets a free pass concerning egregious errors in his analysis. His reputation for making an original contribution to chess theory might be somewhat greater than deserved.
The first two quiz questions at the beginning of the first chapter on Philidor offer positions from his games. ChessBase Meg 2020 and many books endorse Philidor's evaluation of the position. Willy Hendriks and Komodo 15 disagree.
*See "On the Origin: Reading Journal".
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