In chess, an isolated pawn is a pawn which has no friendly pawn on an adjacent file. An isolated queen's pawn is often called an isolani. Isolated pawns are usually a weakness because they cannot be protected by other pawns. Many "textbook" openings create at least one isolated pawn but are nevertheless accepted as orthodox because they create advantages, such as improved development and associated opportunities for counterplay, that offset or even outweigh the weaknesses associated with the pawn's isolation.
Read more about Isolated Pawn: Weakness, Isolated Queen Pawn
Famous quotes containing the words isolated and/or pawn:
“There is a city myth that country life was isolated and lonely; the truth is that farmers and their families then had a richer social life than they have now. They enjoyed a society organic, satisfying and whole, not mixed and thinned with the life of town, city and nation as it now is.”
—Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1965)
“In ceremonies of the horsemen,
Even the pawn must hold a grudge.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)