Passed Pawns
Passed pawns can be a valuable tool to carry you to victory! In endgames, pawns can more easily reach the end of the board and promote. The faster you promote, the better!
What are Passed Pawns?
Passed pawns are pawns that can't be stopped by other pawns.
Here, the white b-pawn is a passed pawn. There is no black pawn that can stop it.
The black d-pawn is not a passed pawn. It doesn't have a pawn in front of it, but it can be captured by the white e-pawn if it moves.
Special Passed Pawns
1. Outside Passed Pawn
An outside passed pawn is a passed pawn that is on the opposite side of the board as all of the other pawns.
In these positions, use your passed pawn as a distraction to lure the enemy king away from his pawns.
Get closer and closer to the enemy pawns with your king until you can capture them.Â
Look through the moves on this example:
2. Protected Passed Pawn
A protected passed pawn is similar to an outside passed pawn, but it is "protected" by another pawn.
In these positions, you can ignore the passed pawn and run your king straight to the enemy pawns.
If the enemy king goes behind your passed pawn, you can run your pawn to promote, so the enemy king is stuck in front of it.
The Square Rule
Let's say you have a passed pawn. Can the enemy king stop it?
Imagine a square on the board. Your pawn is one corner of the square and the edge of the board is the top side.
If the enemy king is not on one of the red squares, and it's your move, your pawn can promote by itself.
If the enemy king is in the square, your pawn will need help from your king to promote.
Creating Passed Pawns
Take a look at this position.
Your a-pawn is on the 6th rank!
It's really close to the other side, but the black a-pawn is in the way.
How can you move the black pawn so your pawn can move?
You can sacrifice your bishop!
When the black a-pawn captures your bishop, your a-pawn can run up the board!
The position was equal, but now you're winning! You lost a bishop, but now you can get a queen!
This position is a simple way to understand pawn breakthroughs.
You need to get a pawn to the other side of the board. How do you do it?
The first move is to push the middle pawn. If Black doesn't capture your pawn, it can make it to the end.
So what happens when Black captures?
Let's say Black captures with the a-pawn.
The next move is to push the c-pawn.
Now this seems like a bad move. Both of our pawns are unprotected!
But there's a trick to this position. If Black captures one pawn, the other will promote.
If Black captures our a-pawn, we can capture the b-pawn!
Now our pawn can't be stopped!
But what happens if Black doesn't do that?
If Black captures our c-pawn, we can just push our a-pawn and Black can't stop it!
If you're wondering what happens if Black captured your b-pawn with their c-pawn, do the same thing but flipped (push the a-pawn first, and so on.).
