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:
“I can’t earn my own living. I could never make anything turn into money. It’s like making fires. A careful assortment of paper, shavings, faggots and kindling nicely tipped with pitch will never light for me. I have never been present when a cigarette butt, extinct, thrown into a damp and isolated spot, started a conflagration in the California woods.”
—Margaret Anderson (1886–1973)
“In ceremonies of the horsemen,
Even the pawn must hold a grudge.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)