Online chess community where you can play chess, learn strategies and tactics, read chess news, see book reviews, find rules & tips, get free downloads, and more! http://www.chess.com/ 2007 Chess.com Today we will look at bishop vs. knight endgame where one or both sides have connected passed pawns. Two examples feature an extra two pawns in these endgames and as we will see, having two extra pawns does not necessarily guarantee a win. The thi... http://www.chess.com/article/view/arch-arch-nemeses-connected-passers Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:52:35 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/arch-arch-nemeses-connected-passers The topic of today's article is piece sacrifice in bishop vs. knight endgames. The most typical scenario is to sacrifice a piece in order to get a passed pawn. This is common because in endgames the price of a passed pawn can be much higher than t... http://www.chess.com/article/view/sacrifice-in-b-vs-n-endgame Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:13:04 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/sacrifice-in-b-vs-n-endgame No two pieces have faced off more often, or with greater acrimony, than the bishop and knight. With today's article we are starting a series on bishop versus knight endgames. Here are a few examples that show different scenarios that can happen in... http://www.chess.com/article/view/start-of-the-series-bishop-vs-knight Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:32:07 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/start-of-the-series-bishop-vs-knight It was the first round of the North American Open in Las Vegas and I was paired against the top 50 player Vallejo Pons, rated over 2700. Usually I don't get to play foreign chess players because they don't often come to play in American Opens. Val... http://www.chess.com/article/view/playing-the-2700 Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:26:02 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/playing-the-2700 For the past few weeks we were busy exploring opposite-colored bishop endgames with other material present on the board. Today I will deviate from the topic by showing you my recent endgame experience from a tournament in Las Vegas. I cannot call ... http://www.chess.com/article/view/keep-it-together Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:47:54 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/keep-it-together Today we will look at rook and bishop endgames where the bishops are of opposite color and where one side has a passed pawn. We will explore attacking and defensive strategies by examining three examples. The complexity of the examples increases f... http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-fight-against-advanced-pawn-rb Fri, 06 Jan 2012 23:06:28 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-fight-against-advanced-pawn-rb A rook and a bishop is a powerful combination. If their joined force hits a weak point the defending side might find it hard to defend, especially if the weak point is located around the king. A very typical pawn structure arising from many openin... http://www.chess.com/article/view/cracking-squeaking-f2--square Thu, 29 Dec 2011 21:25:04 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/cracking-squeaking-f2--square Today we will look at an opening-endgame transition resulting from the Queen's Gambit Accepted (QGA). We will see the analysis of three games, the first one being from my game a few years ago. In this opening it is usually white who chooses to go ... http://www.chess.com/article/view/qga---hard-to-lose-even-harder-to-win Thu, 22 Dec 2011 22:29:04 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/qga---hard-to-lose-even-harder-to-win Suppose you play a lower-rated opponent and the game steers into an endgame right away. This can be due to you trying to outplay your less-experienced opponent and prove that your endgames skills are worthy or due to your lower- rated opponent try... http://www.chess.com/article/view/a-visit-from-the-queenless-squad Thu, 15 Dec 2011 22:09:16 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/a-visit-from-the-queenless-squad Today we will look at a game where the transition from opening to endgame did not go well for one side. White ended up with a busted bishop on b3 with no prospect of activating it due to doubled c-pawns. As a few probably guessed by now, the game ... http://www.chess.com/article/view/busted-bishop Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:36:30 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/busted-bishop With the next couple of articles we will look at transitions from openings into endgames and explore the significance of endgames in opening preparation. Gata Kamsky once gave me advice on how to study openings. In addition to theory he recommende... http://www.chess.com/article/view/a-thin-line-between-opening-and-endgame Thu, 01 Dec 2011 23:27:48 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/a-thin-line-between-opening-and-endgame Heavy pieces endgames are endgames when only queens and/or rooks and pawns are left on the board. The key factors are space and open files. Controlling a vital open file can be a decisive advantage. Here are the most typical plans you can employ ... http://www.chess.com/article/view/heavy-piece-endgames Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:07:21 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/heavy-piece-endgames Today's article is a continuation of the queen endgames theme. The last article we looked at stalemate ideas in queen endgames and today we will look at pawn sacrifices. In the first example, black sacrifices a pawn in hope of perpetual and an eas... http://www.chess.com/article/view/queen-endgames-pawn-sac Fri, 25 Nov 2011 22:55:27 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/queen-endgames-pawn-sac Today’s article is dedicated to two topics in queen endgames. The first one is how to play queen endgames when one side has extra f- and h-pawns. Last week we had a chance to analyze positions with extra g- and h-pawns and they proved to be ... http://www.chess.com/article/view/queen-endgames-beware-of-stalemate Thu, 17 Nov 2011 23:02:08 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/queen-endgames-beware-of-stalemate Rook endgames are the most common ones in chess. Unfortunately, they are also complicated both in terms of evaluation and in terms of knowing how to play them. Therefore, it is not surprising that Tarrasch used to say that "all rook endgames are d... http://www.chess.com/article/view/studying-rook-endgames Tue, 15 Nov 2011 08:38:20 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/studying-rook-endgames I would like to return to queen endgames as they are the ones that puzzle many chess players. Queen endgames are complicated because there are not many theoretical positions to know, and they require tons of calculations because of possible perpet... http://www.chess.com/article/view/queen-endgames-q2p-vs-q Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:55:48 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/queen-endgames-q2p-vs-q With the past two articles we looked at the importance of passed pawns in endgames. We looked at pawn breaks and piece sacrifices to achieve positions with passed pawns. Those positions were mostly winning for the side that had a passed pawn. Toda... http://www.chess.com/article/view/when-pawn-moves-do-not-work Thu, 03 Nov 2011 23:49:17 -0700 http://www.chess.com/article/view/when-pawn-moves-do-not-work Today we will look at how to create passed pawns in endgame positions with minor pieces. The examples that are shown here concentrate on pawn breaks and piece sacrifices in order to achieve positions with passed pawns. Creating a passed pawn is eq... http://www.chess.com/article/view/paws-forward-part-2 Fri, 28 Oct 2011 07:39:14 -0700 http://www.chess.com/article/view/paws-forward-part-2                                           Nunn's Chess Endings Volume 2 by John Nunn Softcover, 352 pages Gambit.2010 http://www.gambitbooks.com/ http://www.chess.com/article/view/nunns-chess-endi... http://www.chess.com/article/view/john-nunn-has-a-dreamii Fri, 28 Oct 2011 01:22:44 -0700 http://www.chess.com/article/view/john-nunn-has-a-dreamii                                           Nunn's Chess Endings Volume 1 by Dr. John Nunn Softcover, 320 pages Gambit.2010 http://www.gambitbooks.com/index.html               John Nu... http://www.chess.com/article/view/nunns-chess-endingsvolume-1 Tue, 25 Oct 2011 04:10:36 -0700 http://www.chess.com/article/view/nunns-chess-endingsvolume-1