What pawn structure to choose

Advice from Jose Raul Capablanca: "It is recommended, especially in the early stages of the game, not to break your pawn chain".

A pawn chain or connected pawns is a continuity of pawns located on nearby vertical lines. The more pawns in one chain, the better.

There can be two or more pawns of the same color on the same vertical. If there are two such pawns they are called doubled pawns. Less common are tripled pawns. When a pawn captures, it moves to an adjacent vertical. Therefore, several pawns can appear on the line at once. This significantly weakens the position.

An isolated pawn has no pawns-neighbors along the verticals to the left and right of it. This can happen when nearby pawns are either captured by an opponent or have captured an enemy piece by moving to the vertical away from the pawn that has become an insulator. The enemy can capture such a pawn much easier than a pawn located in a chain.

Therefore, you should not break the pawn chain to avoid weaknesses in the form of doubled and isolated pawns.