Worst pawn structure of all time?

[Matt Fletcher]

Played a rapid game last night where my opponent got one set of isolated tripled, one set of isolated doubled, and two other isolated pawns by move 16.

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Wondering if anyone’s ever seen a worse pawn ‘structure’?

[Nick Burrows]

Very impressive!

[Kevin Thurlow]

Two club colleagues had a game where both of them had 6 isolated pawns (2 pairs of doubleb pawns and two sole ones).

At least you read the chapter on pawn structure!

[John Upham]

I recommend a thorough study of Pawn Power in Chess by Hans Kmoch. He would be most amused.

[Kevin Williamson]

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This happened earlier this season in a Beds league game. I've just played fxg5 giving myself tripled isolated pawns, two sets of doubled isolated pawns and a single isolated pawn. The position is actually OK though and the game was drawn soon after.

[Matt Fletcher]

Wow, that’s even more special!

[Geoff Chandler]

I was recently going through the Edinburgh Committee's circa 1830's report on the Edinburgh v London 1824-1828 match.

The said in Game 5 (which they won) although their pawns were isolated and doubled they had enjoyed a certain
amount of active play and perhaps Philidor's views on the subject of pawns needs to be reconsidered.
This is actually pioneering stuff. Chess by trial and error.

However later in the game Philidor was somewhat vindicated as a passed pawn, which Edinburgh sacced a piece to obtain, won the day.

That game had the classic position (white to play)

2R5/p5pk/1pp4p/b4P2/5PP1/4R1PK/P1r4B/7r w - - 3 40

The move to stop mate in one is 40.g5 which in turn threatens mate in one with the very pawn that just moved.

Edinburgh is White

1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 Nd4 4. Nd4 ed4 5. Qd4 Ne7 6. Bc4 Nc6 7. Qd5 Qf6 8. Nc3 Bb4 9. Bd2 d6 10. Bb5 Bd7 11. Qc4 Bc5 12. O-O O-O 13. Qd3 Ne5 14. Qg3 Bb5 15. Nb5 c6 16. Nc3 Nc4 17. Bg5 Qg6 18. b3 f6 19. Bc1 Qg3 20. hg3 Bd4 21. bc4 Bc3 22. Rb1 b6 23. Rd1 Rae8 24. Rb3 Ba5 25. f3 f5 26. ef5 Re2 27. g4 Rc2 28. Bf4 Rc4 29. Bd6 Re8 30. Ra3 h6 31. Bc7 Re7 32. Rd8 Kh7 33. Rc8 Rc1 34. Kh2 Ree1 35. Kh3 Rh1 36. Bh2 Bc3 37. f4 Bd2 38. g3 Ba5 39. Re3 Rc2 40. g5 Rhh2 41. Kg4 h5 42. Kf3 Rhf2 43. Ke4 g6 44. Rc7 Kg8 45. Ke5 Rc5 46. Kf6 Rf5 47. Kg6 Rf8 48. Rg7 Kh8 49. Kh6 Bb4 50. Re6 Rf5 51. Rh7 Kg8 52. Rg6 Kf8 53. Rc6 Rc5 54. Rf6 Ke8 55. g6 Rc3 56. g4 Bf8 57. Rf8 Kf8 58. g7 Kf7 59. Rh8 Rc6 60. Kh7

[Matt Mackenzie]

One of the Botvinnik-Smyslov WC matches had a game with *both* players possessing trebled pawns for at least a few moves.