Get practical chess training now and play this position below with the white pieces. You enjoy a 5-Pawn-Advantage so you are expected to win this game.
Let’s understand why you have an advantage in the chess position below as White. First let’s look at the material as we always do and after that we look at other advantage factors.
Advantage for White
- White has 7 pawns versus 5 pawns of Black so he is 2 pawns up. This makes for an advantage level of 2 pawns.
- Both sides have a queen, two rooks and two lightpieces…so material is even in this respect.
- Let’s look at positional aspects now. queens are even, black rook a3 is even with white rook b1, both are actively placed. White rook e7 is stronger than black rook f8 as it puts pressure to the king and pins the black bishop g7.
- Lightpieces (bishops and knights) are roughly evenly placed.
- White is controlling the only open file, the b-file, with Queen and rook.
- The white a-pawn at the queenside is a PASSED PAWN, this makes it very dangerous.
If you add up all these material and positional advantages you get roughly a 5-Pawn-Advantage, which is very strong and we can say that this is a winning position for White and you should be able to win it.
Hint: Use what you have got! You control the b-file, so use it to penetrate into Blacks position (to the seventh rank). Trade pieces only if this improves your position, and for no other reason. To trade the queens now is not a good idea as you will lose a lot of advantage if you do that because Black recaptures with the knight and you are in trouble as it attacks your rook…
As the a-pawn is a passed pawn it strives to go ahead, but it can’t do that as it is blocked by the black rook. So it would be a good idea in the long run to free this pawn to enable it to run and to promote into a queen.
I wish you the best. Good luck.
You are White – Win it!
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