Here the advance of the White King’s side pawns has undeniably produced weaknesses in the pawn skeleton, and these would be fatal had the Black pieces as much mobility as the White ones.  But the congestion of Black’s pieces on the Queen’s side makes his defence unwieldy, and White has no difficulty in accumulating his forces on the King’s side for the final assault.  The prospects are that White will be able to bring home his attack, before Black has a chance of forcing exchanges and of bringing about the end-game, which through the weakness of the White pawns would probably turn to his advantage.  The play (E.  Cohn-Ed. Lasker match, Berlin, 1909) is instructive, and shows how the attack should be conducted in such positions. 1.  Kt-Kt3, B-Kt2; 2.  K-R2, P-B3; 3.  R-KKt1, Kt-Q2; 4.  Kt-R4, K-B2.  The concentration of the White pieces has become alarming, and threatens to be continued by Q-Q2, R-Kt2.  QR-KKt1, and Kt-B5.  So the Black King decides on flight, but he finds no peace on the Q side either, because there his advanced pawns soon allow White to make a breach in the Black position.

5.  Kt-Kt2, K-K2; 6.  Q-K2, Kt-Kt3; 7.  KR-KB1, B-B1.  It is Black’s intention to play P-B4 as soon as practicable, and to make an attempt at a counter demonstration on the King’s side, 8.  P-K B4, K-Q1? (Black should have kept to his original intention and played P-B4); 9.  PxP, QPxP; 10.  Q-B2, Kt-Q2; 11.  P-QR4; B-Kt2; 12.  PxP, PxP; 13.  RxR, BxR.  Now White has achieved what he set out to do.  He has opened up avenues of attack on the Queen’s side, and is ready to utilise the weakness of Black’s QBP by playing P-Kt4, on which Black must submit to opening the file for the White KR or the diagonal for the White QB.  In either case White brings vastly superior forces to bear on the Black King’s position, and Black should lose.  In this game Black escaped only through a mistake on the part of his opponent.

In the foregoing positions it was seen how fatal weaknesses can be, which are produced by the premature advance of the pawns in front of the King, on whom the opposing pieces can force their attack.  When the pawns concerned are on the opposite wing to their King, the disadvantages of a premature advance are felt in a different way.  The weakness concerns the pawns themselves and not the forces behind them, and is apt to cause the loss of the end-game, particularly of Rook end-games.  Let us compare the positions in Diagrams 97

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8 | #R |    | #B | #Q |    | #R | #K |    |
|---------------------------------------|
7 | #P | #P | #P |    |#Kt | #P |    | #P |
|---------------------------------------|
6 |    |    |    | #P |    | #P |    |    |
|---------------------------------------|
5 |    | ^B |    |    | #P |    |    |    |
|---------------------------------------|
4 |    | #B |    |    | ^P |    |    |    |
|---------------------------------------|
3 |    |    |^Kt | ^P |    |^Kt |    |    |
|---------------------------------------|
2 | ^P | ^P | ^P |    |    | ^P | ^P | ^P |
|---------------------------------------|
1 | ^R |    |    | ^Q |    | ^R | ^K |    |
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A    B    C    D    E    F    G    H

Diag. 97