Edward Winter
From Earliest Occurrences of Chess Terms:
Isolated pawn
OED: ‘An isolated pawn is one that has no comrade on the same or either adjoining file, so that he requires the support of a Piece.’ Chess Exemplified by C. Pearson (London, 1842), page 27.
‘The isolated pawn is perhaps rather more than compensated by the forwardness of the pieces.’ Studies of Chess (London, 1810), page 208.
Concerning the famous ‘Tartakowerism’ about an isolated pawn spreading gloom all over the chess board, readers are invited to use a search-engine for a little test:
a) How many webpages have the quote?
b) How many webpages have it with a source?
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Hassan Roger Sadeghi (Lausanne, Switzerland) points out that the remark appeared on page 113 of the second edition of Tartakower’s book Schachmethodik (Berlin, 1929):
‘Ein isolierter Bauer verbreitet Trübsinnigkeit übers ganze Brett.’
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A misattribution on page 136 of Chess Rules of Thumb by Lev Alburt and Al Lawrence (New York, 2003):
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‘The isolated queen’s pawn is an important learning element in chess strategy. The late Bob Wade first coined the term IQP in his 1963 book on the World Championship match between Botvinnik and Petrosian.’
Source: Raymond Keene, in his chess column in The Times, 11 April 2009.
With Google Books it takes about ten seconds to find earlier occurrences of ‘IQP’, one instance being in The Return of Alekhine by C.J.S. Purdy (Sydney, 1938). We add that the text in question, concerning the nineteenth match-game between Euwe and Alekhine, had already appeared on page 349 of Purdy’s Australasian Chess Review, 20 December 1937:
For our part, we would never claim that even Purdy ‘first coined the term IQP’ (or that it was only in 1937 that he first used it).
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Mario Manasse (Milan, Italy) comments on the term ‘isolani’, a plural noun frequently used in the singular. Our Earliest Occurrences of Chess Terms article lists the following with respect to English-language sources:
‘White has an “isolani”.’ My System by A. Nimzowitsch (London, 1929), page 187.
Below is the relevant passage from the original German edition (page 260):
We are seeking earlier uses of the word in a chess context, as well as clarification as to whether the singular form should be isolanus (Latin) or isolano (Italian).
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Sandro Litigio (Como, Italy) writes:
‘The Italian word isolani is the plural form of the adjective/noun isolano (island/insular/islander), while the corresponding Latin word is insulanus.’
C.N. 5047 quoted the appearance of the word isolani in Nimzowitsch’s Mein System in the mid-1920s, but we have now found it in Leonhardt’s annotations to the game Dus-Chotimirsky v Tarrasch, Hamburg, 1910. Published in the Hamburger Nachrichten of 21 August 1910, the notes were reproduced on pages 357-359 of the October-November 1910 Wiener Schachzeitung. After 1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nf3 c5 4 e3 Nf6 5 Nc3 Nc6 6 a3 Bd6 7 dxc5 Bxc5 8 b4 Bd6 9 Bb2 O-O 10 cxd5 exd5 11 Nb5 Bb8 there is the following:
Can earlier instances of the term be found, in the writings of Leonhardt, Nimzowitsch or anyone else?
A possible explanation occurs to us regarding the singular/plural puzzle. Depending on the context, the German preposition vor (in front of) takes either the accusative or the dative case, but with a masculine noun (such as Isolani) the definite article would be den in both instances. For example:
a) Knights are effective when they stand in front of the isolated pawns. Springer sind wirkungsvoll, wenn sie vor den Isolani stehen. (Dative plural.)
b) White places his knight in front of the isolated pawn. Weiss setzt seinen Springer vor den Isolani. (Accusative singular.)
Is it conceivable that a German sentence such as the one in a) above was misinterpreted as the accusative singular, with the result that Isolani came to be regarded as a singular noun?
A more general question still outstanding, of course, is why an Italian word was used.
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Javier Asturiano Molina (Murcia, Spain) draws attention to a webpage on isolani by Olle Ekengren. [Replacement link.]
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Javier Asturiano Molina adds that Nimzowitsch used the word ‘isolani’ not only in Mein System but also, around the same time, on page 485 of the October-December 1926 issue of Kagans Neueste Schachnachrichten. As his annotations to the game (H. von Gottschall v Nimzowitsch, Hanover, 1926) are different from those on pages 163-165 of his book Die Praxis meines Systems (Berlin, 1930), the full game is reproduced here from pages 485-487 of the magazine:
It is not only the annotations that are different. Quite apart from the misnumbering of some moves above, there are discrepancies in the score compared to the version in Die Praxis meines Systems and on pages 66-67 of Kongreßbuch Hannover 1926 (Berlin, 1926). Has either player’s score-sheet survived?
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In the position below, from the 12th-round game between Matthias Blübaum and Fabiano Caruana at the Candidates Tournament in Pegeia on 12 April 2026, does Black have an isolated queen’s pawn?
Position after 23...Rf7-c7
In a discussion with Fiona Steil-Antoni and Jon Ludvig Hammer, Hikaru Nakamura contended on his YouTube channel (from approximately 17:40) that the d5 pawn is not isolated, given that there is a white pawn on d4.
The video shows that Nakamura is not alone in that view, which rests on a distinction between the literal meaning of ‘isolated pawn’ and practical play involving the d-pawn. Have other authorities expressed themselves?
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