When Black, for example, plays ...Bxb3 it is nearly always better to recapture with axb3 rather than cxb3.
Generally speaking, the nearer a pawn is to the centre, the stronger it is.
This particularly applies to a rook's pawn, which, when 'promoted' to a knight's pawn, doubles the number of squares it controls.
Of course, in the great scheme of things, we are talking small margins - a better pawn-structure is unlikely to make up for the loss of a piece, although it might make up for the loss of a pawn.
A prominent exception to the desirability of capturing towards the centre comes in the Spanish, after White captures a knight on c6.
This commonly happens in the Exchange Variation (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6), but also occurs in delayed forms of the Exchange, and in some other lines.
My round-seven game at Mariánské Lázně, when I had white against Poland's Michał Nisztuk (1696), featured one such line.
It started as a Berlin Defence to the Spanish, ie 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6.
I continued with the relatively unusual 4.Qe2!?, and after 4...Bc5!?, which is the most popular reply in ChessBase's 2026 Mega database, I played the rare, but engine-approved, 5.Bxc6!?, which occurs in 56 out of 788 games in Mega26, ie 7.1% of the time.
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| Position after White's capture on c6 |
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The game saw 5...dxc6?!, but after 6.Nxe5 Qd4 7.Nd3 it was clear something had gone wrong for Black, who, with best play, is not getting the pawn back.
It turns out the diagram is one of those exceptional cases in the Spanish when a capture on c6 should be answered with the positionally desirable option of capturing towards the centre.
After 5...bxc6 the engines still approve of 6.Nxe5, but then 6...Qe7 7.Nd3 can be met by 7...Ba6, when Stockfish17.1 and Dragon1 reckon Black has at least a slight edge.
LESSON: general rules about which way to recapture are useful guidelines but, as American author and international master John Watson would be sure to point out, they should not be relied on - calculation is necessary.
LESSON: general rules about which way to recapture are useful guidelines but, as American author and international master John Watson would be sure to point out, they should not be relied on - calculation is necessary.
