Backward pawn
Encyclopedia
In chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

, a backward pawn is a pawn
Pawn (chess)
The pawn is the most numerous and weakest piece in the game of chess, historically representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins the game with eight pawns, one on each square of the rank immediately in front of the other pieces...

 that is behind the pawns of the same color on the adjacent files and that cannot be advanced without loss of material, usually the backward pawn itself.

In the diagrammed position, the Black pawn on the c6 square is backward. Backward pawns are usually a positional disadvantage, since they are hard to defend. Also, the opponent can place a piece, usually a knight, on the hole in front of the pawn without any risk of a pawn driving it away. The backward pawn also prevents the black rooks
Rook (chess)
A rook is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. Formerly the piece was called the castle, tower, marquess, rector, and comes...

 and queen
Queen (chess)
The queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess, able to move any number of squares vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of the first rank next to the king. With the chessboard oriented correctly, the white queen starts...

 on the eighth rank from attacking the piece placed on the hole.

If the backward pawn is on a half-open file
Half-open file
In chess, a half-open file, or semi-open file, is a file with only pawns of one color. The half-open file can provide a line of attack for a player's rook or queen. A half-open file can only be used by the player with no pawns on it....

, as in this case, the disadvantage is much larger, as it can be more easily attacked by an opponent's rook or queen on the c-file. Pieces can become weak when they are devoted to protecting a backward pawn because they are obligated to defend the pawn and cannot be developed for other uses.
Modern opening theory features several openings in which one of the players deliberately takes on a backward pawn in exchange for some other advantage such as the initiative or better development. An excellent example is the Sveshnikov Variation of the Sicilian Defence
Sicilian Defence
The Sicilian Defence is a chess opening that begins with the moves:The Sicilian is the most popular and best-scoring response to White's first move 1.e4...

. After the moves 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 (or 4...e5!? 5.Nb5 d6 - the Kalashnikov Variation) 5.Nc3 e5!? 6.Ndb5 d6 (Diagram above), Black has a backward pawn on d6, but White now has to endure a displacement of his knights and an undermining of his center after 7.Bg5 a6 8.Na3 b5 9.Bxf6 gxf6! 10.Nd5 (dodging the threatened pawn-fork of the knights) 10...f5! [or 10...Bg7 11.c3 (facilitating the knight on a3 to return to the center by the route Na3-c2-e3) 11...f5!] 11.c3 Bg7 etc.
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