The Principle of Two Weaknesses

This is one of the most important principles of chess strategy, and it has been successfully used by all the great players. Sometimes, we have a clear advantage (passed pawn, extra pawn, opponent’s bad bishop, etc.), but still can’t find the way to convert it into victory; the opponent is still able to resist. In such situations we need to create a second weakness or problem for the opponent. I prefer to call it “the second problem” because it may be not only a weakness of the opponent but also our position’s strength (for example passed pawn).

How Does it Work?

Let’s imagine that we have an extra pawn, but the opponent is blocking it with his pieces and we can’t find a way to liberate the file for pawn advance. This is the best moment to use the principle of two weaknesses! We need to open a second front on the outlying territory/flank.  As the opponent’s pieces are busy with the defensive job against our extra pawn he:

1. can’t use the necessary number of his forces to cover the new space that gets attacked, and
2. is not flexible enough to get help quickly to the opposite flank.

Practical Example

Here we see a position with the decisive advantage of White, through an extra pawn, a bad d7 bishop, good squares for white knights (e5, b6), space advantage, etc. But the pawn structure is closed and the a6 pawn is blocked, so there are no direct ways to finish the game. White played h2-h3! with the idea to expand the battlefield and to open the file or to create some weakness on the king’s side. Probably White will exchange on f5 after g2-g4 and in the case of e6xf5 he will continue with h3-h4-h5 and will finally open up a file. After that, Black will not be able to cover all the weaknesses on the both edges of the board.

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