The Value OF Pawns : Evaluating Material, Quality And Time by CM Can Kabadayi

Stop Grabbing Pawns and Start Grabbing Points

“How many times have you struggled with the age-old question – do I grab the pawn, or do I let it go?”

Time, quality and material all play a factor when evaluating a position, and evaluating these imbalances correctly can be the difference between winning and losing.

CM Kabadayi recognized the problem here – it’s incredibly hard for club players to evaluate the true value of a pawn when compared to other advantages.

So should you grab the pawn or ignore it? That’s one of the questions Can aims to answer in this course. The course is packed with exercises that’ll force you to calculate accurately and then evaluate the consequences of pawn grabbing. Your ability to intuitively understand the right approach will certainly improve.

Can Black grab the g4 pawn and get away with it?

In practice, you’ll often find yourself on the other side of the same problem. Should you defend a pawn or simply sacrifice it for an initiative? CM Kabadayi noticed that club players often have a tendency to passively defend material when the best option is to press forward.

The h2 pawn is under attack – how do you deal with it?

After studying the explanatory chapters, you’ll be ready to move onto the 88 instructive puzzles that CM Kabadayi has carefully chosen. You’ll soon be a master of evaluating the cost of a pawn, which is a hugely important part of chess analysis.

So what exactly will you learn in this course?

♟️When you can safely grab a pawn to your advantage
♟️Why you should sometimes ignore a “free” pawn because your opponent will get dangerous compensation
♟️When to spend your time on defending material
♟️The advantage of not passively defending when you can sacrifice material for an initiative
♟️Most importantly – how to evaluate these positions from a distance

CM Can Kabadayi is a Swedish FIDE Instructor and cognitive scientist. He specializes in creating unique Chessable courses that cover often-ignored topics, such as The Art of Burying Pieces and The Art of Multi-Purpose Moves. He was the 2022 Community Author of the Year and his Fundamental Chess Calculation Skills course was voted the Best Tactics Course of 2023.