Should White Exchange the Queens or Not?

Hello,

This is Grandmaster Ankit Rajpara here. I will be explaining this position in more detail.

Overview of Position: Material is equal. White's pawn structure is not good because of doubled isolated e-pawns and black's king is quite weak.

Solution: Due white's not so good pawn structure and black's weak king, white should keep the queens to put pressure on black.

White should play Qf1, not allowing exchange of queens and attacking the f6 bishop. After black's Ref8, white can shift the queen to the queenside by playing Qa6 and black's queenside will soon collapse.

You can attempt more puzzles like this here: https://chessneurons.com/puzzles/trial/0

Grandmaster Tip: Whenever you have structural weaknesses in your position and your opponent's king is weak then you must avoid exchanging the queens because the queen is one of the most important attackers and to compensate for your structural weaknesses, you need to create immediate counterplay!

P.S. Please comment if you would like more such articles in the future.