The Minority Attack

The minority attack in chess is a rather advanced strategic concept. But that’s ok, even if you are a kid or a beginner. First of all, you can impress your friends when you walk around talking about the minority attack. If they don’t know what it is they might just nod and pretend they do, or if they do know what it is their eyebrows will go up and they will say “aha!” and think, wow, this kid really knows chess! So either way it’s great!

The minority attack in chess is simple to explain though. It is when you have a smaller group of pawns in an area of the chess board than your opponent and you begin storming your opponent’s larger pawn mass with your smaller one. And why should you do it? Well, for the same reason a poodle attacks a great dane! And sometimes the great dane looks at the tiny barking noisy animal and thinks maybe I better not mess with it! But there’s more reason. To open lines for your pieces to attack, and when you open lines for your pieces you often find tactics. You are also weakening your opponent’s pawns too, after which you might give up one to win two, if you can visualize that. For example if they capture your pawn they might double theirs, and you can win them by placing a rook on the file. Or if they just let you exchange they might end up with a backward pawn, or a pawn that isn’t protected by another pawn, and that can’t move forward without being captured.

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