Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1. Closed Center
When the center is closed, building local force superiority on one of the flanks is almost a
requirement of the position. However, almost all the time, the agglomeration of pieces
should be preceded by advancing the pawns on that side, in order to create space for
maneuvers and open files for rooks.
In the situation of the closed centre, the player who is able to open the position, bring
more pieces, creating real threats first, gets the initiative.
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2. Static center
When the centre is semi-closed, the attacks on flanks have good chances for success, but
the consequences of moving the pieces on one of the wings have to be seriously
calculated beforehand as the counter-attack on the other side can be very dangerous.
So, while the attacks in positions with closed centre should run in any circumstances as
fast as possible, when the centre is semi-closed (static), some weaknesses should be
created on opponents camp before moving the pieces on that side. This way, creating a
superiority of forces on that side should bring the initiative as the second player has to do
defend the problematic square/s of his position, not being able to create a counter-attack
on the other side.
If there are no weaknesses or easy targets in opponents camp, the attack can fail while
the counter-attack will run easier on the other side of the board. In the lesson piece out
of play, we saw examples of how bad bringing the pieces on one of the flanks can end if
the attack runs slowly (the pieces can become even out of play).
Also, when the pieces are not supported by advancing the pawns (like in the closed
centre), some neat maneuvers are usually required to arrange the pieces for a good
collaboration. This aspect is very important and it will be studied in the next lesson.