In an attempt to learn more about rook endgames, I am opening up a challenge to anyone who wants to play me from this position:

Note: you can choose white or black

I offer a draw.

I accept. Anyone else?

John Nunn recommended practicing rook endgames with an extra pawn in a similar position. Try it with this position:

How do you play 'from a position'?

Steve

Good question. We could just post a different diagram with each move.

A number of us have been trying to get Chess.Com to allow us to start a game from any position. In addition to practicing openings, this would enable us to play endgames like this.

Anyone who agrees to this idea could do worse than suggest the idea to Chess.Com in any place and as often as they can. "Please give us the possibility to specify an opening position for a game."

Steve

I've given up making suggestions to chess.com.

Know how you feel, Borg but I think its worth a try in this case. There are lots of advantages to being able to start from any position. Recent changes have also stopped most of the thematic tournaments we've been playing. e.g. the 3. ...Qd6 Scandinavian is no longer available - along ith most of the others which we used to have a choice of.

Steve

Steve, just post the move you would like to play on this forum, and post a diagram with the resulting position on it.

The best we can do until chess.com allows us to make games with any starting position.

In the opening position, how about the Black rook grabbing the open file, Rd8?

The posting of diagrams, etc. is just too much trouble in this day and age, like playing games by email. It would be far easier to just play at another site which does allow any start position. I used to play at QueenAlice and people often posted open challenges there with a custom start position - such as this one.

Steve

We could meet on the live server, where you are allowed custom positions...

That's not a bad idea. Would you liketo have a go at organising something?

Steve

In fact I am almost sure that 1 year ago one could create a tournament and choose the staring position by moving pieces (ie without knowing the actual name of the starting position). Maybe you could start from any position then...

And I thought it was better !

Not sure why Chess.com went backward on this one.

How would you draw the first position?

 Take open file and then exchange rook and then the pawns?

How would you win the other one?

 Push pawns to get a passed pawn and then exchange rook? Or exchange before?

Jcl, to draw, just keep the rooks ON the board. There's no weaknesses, so you could, if you so desired, just shuffle back and forth while your opponent started pushing pawns and creating weaknesses in his own camp.

1...Rd8 (to control the open file) 2.Ke2 Kf8 3.Rd1 Ra8 4.a4 Ke7 and white can't make progress. The pawn ending after 3.Rd1 Rxd1 4.Kxd1 is a bit more challenging. But even in the pawn ending neither side has a dominant king, neither has a potential passed pawn, neither has any weaknesses that can be exploited. 

It really is a pretty dull, drawish position. In order to win, you need to create and exploit weaknesses in the opponent's position.