Thursday 3 January 2013

The so-called weak c pawn...by Junior Tay

This article is inspired by an analysis session with IM Goh Wei Ming and IM Lim Yee Weng following  Wei Ming's game against IM Enrique Paciencia.

In lines such as the Queen's Gambit Exchange and the Catalan Opening, frequently, Black is saddled with a 'weakie' on c6 or c7. However, in master praxis, more often than not, it is not so easy to exploit the weakness due to either good defence or strong counterplay to deflect White's attention. Take the following position which Wei Ming had against Enrique at the recently concluded National Premier...


The game continuation and corresponding analysis can be followed here .

I would like to share with you some adventures I had with such c pawns. About 11 years ago, after saddling my opponent with such a weak c-pawn in an English Opening, I also had to suffer for the duration of the whole game trying to grovel for a draw.

In the following game, my opponent's c pawn is 'so weak' that I did not even consider loping it off.
Of course, I should have just taken the c pawn off. There's no good excuse for the blind spot. Lastly, in the final game, in order to get at the c2 weakie, I had to make positional concessions of my own.

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