The Value of a pawn

       Have you ever had a stituation were your opponent's pawn is attacking your pawn. How do you decide how to handle the problem. Will you capture the attacking pawn or defend your pawn. Such question are very hard to answer. For there is no right or wrong answer, because in chess things, such as positions and materials change, because the decisions of your opponent and you change as the game goes on.                                                                                                                                             Now back to the problem of the pawn. What factors do you consider. Well I consider the value of the pawn. Now you must be thinking that all pawn have the smae value. You must of got that information from something like this :

 Queen-9

Rook-5

Knight and Bishop-3

Pawn-1

King-∞ ( infinity)                     

     I am not saying this is not true, but this won't help us with our problem for we  have two pawn that are attacking each other. Before I tell you about the pawn value, I will tell you how one would creat this chart. One must compare one piece such as a knight or a rook to another piece such as the queen or the pawn. That is how the chart for pieces value came to be. You have compared every piece to each other. 

        Using the coparing  technique, we can find out the value of the pawn, but values can change. To find the values of a certain pawn you first classify them. the pawns  the d and e file should be called the center pawn and the ones on the c and f file should be called the semi-center pawn and the ones  on the a, b, g, and h file should be called the flank pawn.

        Now I consider the center pawn the most important, then the semi-center pawn, and the flank pawn the least important but importantance can change, by many factors. The factors are the space it ocuppys and the space it attacks.Now lets go back to our pawn problem lets say it looks like tthis:

   The pawn e4 and f5 are attacking and its white's turn. Remeber, when I said the center pawn are the most valued so if you (white) attacks then your center pawn will turn into a semi-center, so your opponent has lost a semi-center pawn while you have lost a center pawn, but that doesn't mean you have lost in that capture, you see the captuering of f5 has prevented black from playing e5.

       You see the cener and the semi-center pawn CAN be of qual value, the reason why is that the center pawn  can occupy the cnter and the semi-center can attack the center ( for more information on the center see my upcoming blog about the center), which ever one is part of your plan 

      So here are some factors that will help you make decisions with your pawns, abd finding how much of value it is to you

1. where is it located (flank semi-center,center) 

2. Is it protecting another pawn

3. Is ti protected

4. For semi-center andf center pawns, how do you want to control the center, by occupying it or by attacking it