The Strategy Instructors Volume 4 The Isolated Pawn Jul 11, 2025 + PGN

The 360-Degree Guide to Winning
Both Sides of the Isolani

Are you always “unlucky” with the isolated pawn? You play against it, and your king gets hacked into pieces. You play with it, and it feels like carrying a time bomb. Every exchange inches you closer to a lost endgame! GM Efstratios Grivas has seen this story play out a thousand times. So he built a complete course to change it.

So instead of squirming in your seat at the sight of an isolated pawn…

The isolated pawn appears in almost
every opening. And in a few lessons, it
will be your new winning weapon!

Your hand reaches for the right piece and places it on the right square.

You line up a battery aimed at the enemy king. Then you use your pawn as a launchpad to pounce on weak squares and force resignation!

1. Line up a battery. 2. Pounce on
the weak squares. 3. Lift your
rook. 4. Profit!

Enter The Strategy Instructors Volume 4 by Grandmaster Efstratios Grivas.

He’s a 2-time Greek Champion, European Team gold medalist, and Olympiad silver medalist. He’s also an award-winning FIDE Senior Trainer, with decades of teaching experience at every level.

And today, he shows you how to…

Squeeze Every Drop of Improvement from
the Most Instructive Pawn in Chess

From opening strategy to middlegame maneuvers, from positional play to endgame technique…

Studying both sides of the isolated pawn sharpens every part of your game.

Let’s walk you through the course:

First, Grivas equips you with thinking tools which help you zero in on the right plans faster. Once you know what matters in isolani positions, you only need to smooth out the move order to grow your advantage!

💥 Learn the 5 strengths and 6 weaknesses of the isolated pawn. So you can make better sense of the moves and weigh the positions more accurately.

💥 To exchange or not to exchange? Make the right call using the Rules of Exchanges. Rule #1 keeps your attacking chances alive. Rule #2 keeps you out of nightmare endgames, where isolated pawns die!

💥 See chapter 2 for your 3 go-to plans when playing with an isolani. If all the usual attacks fail, proceed to plan #2.

Now that you’ve got the theory down, it’s time to turn it into skill.

So you practice using the isolated pawn as a force multiplier in the opening and middlegame.

Your pawn creates outposts and opens up files… while your pieces close in on the enemy king fast!

💥 Master the 3 levels of d-pawn breakthroughs. Push d4-d5 to unmask x-ray attacks on the enemy queen. Push to d6 to cut off defenders from their king. And if you reach d7? Your promotion threat just wins the game!

Your x-ray attack on the enemy queen
ensures that no matter how the position
blows up — it blows up in your favor!

💥 That pesky e-pawn stopping your isolani? You hook onto it with a knight sacrifice. Then you finish with a double attack and check to scoop up material!

With your queen standing on the half-
open e-file, sacrifices on e6 are
just around the corner!

💥 Drill fianchetto holes around the enemy king. Then smoke it out with tactics on f7!

💥 Queen under fire? Tuck her onto this edge-of-the-board square, where she quietly hits 3 critical squares around the enemy king

💥 Punish premature knight leaps to d5. It looks like a solid blockade… until you tear it down with tactics along the e-file and long diagonal.

Most guides stop here — at opening themes and flashy middlegame tactics.

But what happens when your opponent starts trading down against your isolani?

Don’t worry, because Grivas covers the endgame from both sides, too!

He teaches you the art of defense, square control, and timing. So you can hold your ground when you have the isolani… and pour every ounce of pressure when your opponent does.