Advanced pawn

An advanced pawn is a pawn on the sixth or seventh rank: not yet a queen, already a weapon. It takes squares from the king, it attacks two pieces at once for the price of a pawn, it ties a piece to the queening square, and it turns every exchange into the question of who is left to stop it.

What makes it work is that the pawn's threats cost nothing to make and a piece to answer. A pawn on the seventh attacks two squares on the eighth, and whatever stands there is worth more than it. A pawn on the sixth pushed with check forks like a knight. So the tactics are: push it with tempo, a check or an attack on a piece; trade the pieces that could stop it, a queen trade is a win when your pawn is further along; and remove the blockader.

To spot it, when a pawn reaches the sixth, count the squares to promotion and the pieces that can reach the queening square in time. Ask what the pawn attacks if it steps forward, and what it opens behind it. A pawn on e6 against a king on g8 makes f7 a target; a pawn on f6 makes g7 one; and the trade that looked equal is not.

At higher level the pawn is a decoy. The push that looks like a blunder gives up the pawn to pull a rook onto a square where it hangs, or to open a file for the rook behind it. The piece that stops the pawn is the overloaded one, and a rook that has to stay behind a passed pawn is no longer a rook.