Positional Tactics -- Position 6

This position is so common that in the database of over 1 million games that it appears in about 10% of the games. Now it doesn't win, but it is often the most powerful move on the board, and it often generates the central point of the opening.

In many king pawn openings, there is a half open, or fully open file from King to King. Often the best way to leverage the power that is created by this position is to put the queen right in front of the king This will often create an absolute pin against pieces on the file against the opponents king.

Of course, this also creates the opportunity for your queen to pinned against your own king resulting in the loss of the game. However it generally can only be pinned by either the opponents queen, which doesn't result in a loss, or by an opponents rook which is often at least several moves away from getting there which allows you to leverage the power in your direction before you have to move your queen.

Here are a couple of traps that utilize the power of position 6.


The first is by Alexander Alekhine at a chess tournament in Palma. (If chessloser didn't make it to Benidorm, I hope he made it to Palma). And is what looks like a common trap in the Caro-Kann.  

The second is a miniature by the very prolific Bill Wall.

More Later...