The Irish pawn centre

A club players view

Recently I read an article by Alexander Baburin in the Irish Chess Journal entitled One risky idea in the opening or The Irish pawn centre, and later came across an expanded version in Kingpin No.30 called Winning with the Irish pawn centre?! As Baburin explained the Irish pawn centre is a position with triple isolated pawns. It was Tony Miles who named it thus after witnessing Eamon Keogh use the structure in the Amsterdam zt, 1978. Miles then had the cheek to use it to beat Eamon in a later round of the same tournament. Even the great Smyslov used it to beat Botvinnik twice in world championship matches!

Right now you’re probably asking yourself "What has all this got to do with me? I’m only an ordinary club player". The answer is, it has a lot to do with you, and I am going to show you that the Irish pawn centre can be just as devastating in the hands of a so called "ordinary club player". The story begins just after I had finished reading the above mentioned copy of the ICJ. I was lying on my sofa thinking "I know I have seen that structure somewhere before". Then it came to me, I used the Irish pawn centre myself to beat Tony Duffy two years ago, and I didn’t even know what it was called then! Now I don’t mean any disrespect to Keogh, Miles or Baburin, but when I heard that Smyslov used the IPC to defeat Botvinnik I thought to myself "Now I’m in GOOD company". Anyway, enough talk, lets look at the game.

Go to online viewer of game

(1) Taaffe,P (1567) - Duffy,A (1650) [C69]
Heidenfeld (5), 27.11.1997
[paul taaffe]
1.e4 I had recently switched from 1.e4 to 1.d4, but knew Tony liked playing the black side of the Ruy Lopez, and I have good results with the exchange variation, so I decided to revert back for this game 1...e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 I don't nessacerraly think this move is better than 4.Ba4, but being a lazy player, it saves me having to learn lots of theory 4...dxc6 5.0–0 f6 This move is considered to be the mainline, but I am always happy to face it, as it doesn't seem to interfere too much with white's game. 5...Ne7 or 5...Qd6 keeps white on his toes abit more. 6.d4 Bg4 7.c3 This move constitutes a pawn sacrifice, it was played in the famous game Fischer-Gligorich Havana Olympiad 1966. In that game Gligorich declined the pawn with 7...ed4,8.cd4 Qd7, my opponent also declines the offer. If you don't like giving away pawns you should play 7.dxe5 Qxd1,8.Rxd1 Bxf3,9.gxf3 fxe5,10.Be3 followed by Nd2-c4 with pressure.t 7...Qd6 8.Be3 0–0–0 9.Nbd2 Be6 10.b4 g6 [10...Nh6] 11.a4 Bh6 12.Qe2 Bxe3 13.fxe3! Preparing the way for the Irish pawn centre. 13...Kd7?! 14.Nc4 Bxc4 15.Qxc4 Nh6? This man obviously does not believe in the power of the Irish pawn centre. 16.dxe5!! The deadly formation appears on the board and Black doesn't stand a chance! 16...Qe6 17.Rad1+ Ke7 18.Qc5+ Fritz thinks that 18.exf6 is a better move, but this spoils our favoured formation, and has the added drawback that it could end the game faster! Computers just dont understand the Irish pawn centre and propably never will. ( I should point out here that Tony suggested 18.exf6 himself after the game ) 18...Ke8 19.Rxd8+ Kxd8 20.exf6 This move untriples my pawns, and spoils the Irish pawn centre, but unfortunatly at this point such mundane thoughts as scoring a point for my team took precedence over aesthetics. The real world is a harsh place for us artistic types. 20...b6 21.Qd4+ Kc8 22.Ng5 Qd6 23.e5 Qxd4 24.exd4 Now that the Irish pawn centre has done its job, I can revert to more standerd structures. 24...Nf5 25.Rf3? [25.f7 h5 26.Ne6+- Wins on the spot.] 25...h6 26.Rh3 Rf8 27.Ne4? [27.Ne6 Rf7 28.g4+-] 27...h5 28.e6 Nd6? [28...Rh8] 29.Nxd6+ cxd6 30.e7 1–0