Chess Outposts: How to Exploit Weak Squares

A weak square in chess is a square that can no longer be controlled by one of your own pawns.

Here's what this guide covers.

• How to turn a weak square into an outpost.
• The weak-square complex.

What Is a Weak Square in Chess?

It's worth repeating. A weak square is a square that can no longer be controlled by one of your own pawns. By contrast, a strong square for you is a square your opponent's pawns can no longer control. The key point is that a weak square is only truly weak if you can exploit it. Take a look at the diagram below.

Black's camp has plenty of weak squares, but it's d5 that jumps out. It's a genuine weak square, since Black's pawns have advanced too far to ever challenge it again. More importantly, White has managed to plant a knight there, an outpost that radiates across the whole position.

How to Turn a Weak Square Into an Outpost

To turn a weak square into an outpost, you need to trade off its defenders so you can plant one of your own pieces there instead. Knights are usually the piece that gets the most out of an outpost in enemy territory.

Let's start from the position below, with White to move.

How can White make use of the d5 square? By trading off the knight on f6 and the light-squared bishop on b7, the two pieces that defend it.

After 1.Bxf6 Bxf6 2.Bd5 Bxd5 3.Nxd5,

White has won the fight for d5. The knight now sits on a permanent outpost.

An Original Way to Create an Outpost

Trading pieces off obviously isn't the only way to make use of a strong square. You have to adapt and lean on the concrete features of each position, starting with its pawn structure. <!-- no FR counterpart: sub-hub and satellite linking --> A backward pawn in the enemy camp usually leaves exactly that kind of square behind. Let's look at the board below.

Future world champion Bobby Fischer has White against Grandmaster Bisguier. Fischer wants to exploit the d6 square, and to get there, he's going to use the face-off between the rooks on the h-file.

1.Nf5!!

A pretty extraordinary move.

1...Rxh1 2.Nd6+ Kf8 3.Rxh1

The knight has landed on its outpost on d6. The b7 pawn is under attack, and Bobby Fischer has time to build up his attack before Bisguier can ever kick the knight out.

3...b5 4.f4 Kg8 5.f5

With a crushing attack.

Sacrificing to Win a Strong Square

Garry Kasparov showed just how important it is to win a strong square in the game below. He doesn't hesitate to sacrifice a piece to grab the f5 square for his knight.

A superb game from Kasparov, played the day before his seventeenth birthday.

The Weak-Square Complex in Chess

A weak-square complex is a group of squares of the same color that can no longer be controlled by your pawns. Here's an example straight from the Sicilian.

Black will have to be very careful never to give up the dark-squared bishop without an excellent reason, since it's the sole defender of every one of these weak squares.

Where to Go From Here

To keep reading, here's a good next step.

• Discover 5 elements of chess strategy worth knowing.

That's our guide to weak squares and outposts in chess. We hope you found it useful. Feel free to share it if it helped.