Do you want to see the future of your chess opening? Then use this Crystal Ball trick: Imagine your position with just your king and your pawns. Be sure to imagine your opponent's position in the same way. What's left in your crystal ball is what we call: The Pawn Structure.
The pawn structure is EVERYTHING PAWNS, and this list includes: the pawn chains; isolated pawns; and pawns advancing toward the other side of the board to promote, which we talked about in Preschool Pawns. It may also include other features, such as doubled pawns (same-colored pawns on the same file), but we will talk more about doubled pawns in Don't Give Me a Flat!
A common goal in the Crystal Ball future is to create a "passed pawn". A passed pawn is a pawn that has no enemy pawns on its file or on adjacent files. We will learn more about passed pawns in an article called Gingerbread Pawns.
Let's look at the Ruy Lopez, Exchange Variation, for a Crystal Ball example of how to see the future endgame even from the beginning of an opening.
Black is doing fine at the end of the first five moves. His two bishops are an advantage in the wide-open position. His doubled pawns are structurally weak, but give him an open d-file that his rook will happily occupy after he castles queenside. In fact, black is probably about equal in this position.
What would happen, however, if black traded off all his pieces and only had pawns? Let's look into our Crystal Ball and see.
This endgame was analyzed by Chess World Champion Max Euwe as a win for white, no matter whose move it is! There are a lot of variations, which means that there are many possible ways to go about winning. The diagram above gave one variation, but not the only possible series of moves.
In this endgame from the Ruy Lopez (Exchange Variation), the main idea for white was to create a passed pawn on the kingside. As you saw at the end of the variation given in the diagram above, black's king had to keep close to the white passed h-pawn on the kingside. The white king ultimately will win the black c-pawns on the queenside. Earlier in the variation, we saw that (unlike white) black had no hope of creating a passed pawn. His c7 pawn always stepped on the heels of the c6 pawn, which we will learn more about in Don't Give Me a Flat! And, on the kingside, white had a four pawn to three pawn majority, which we will learn more about in Majority Rules. The pawn majority was the reason that white could create the passed pawn.
So that's a lot of learning to look forward to, but what did we learn in this article?
If you have a bad pawn structure, you may have to win with your pieces in the middlegame. If, on the other hand, the Crystal Ball shows your pawn structure to be better than your opponent's, go forth confidently toward an endgame future...