very welcome :-)

Thank you.

Thanks!

theunderground,

f4 is a very plausible defensive move there. in general you don't want to advance the pawn next to your doubled pawns, because it reduces their mobility, leaving them weaker. so you usually advance f4, not e4 from this structure.

this defense makes a lot of sense for the reason you give: keeping the black rook from attacking the h-pawn for the moment. however, black is still much better. advancing the weak pawns tends to give the king more different ways to enter and attack them eventually.

At the 10-minute mark position, why doesn't White move the e or f pawn up one square, which would block the black rook from cutting across? He also wouldn't be able to cut across on the fifth rank, because c5 is under control. 

very good endgame lesson.thanks

At about 5.25 in the video...

After Bd3 ..Nxf2 Kxf2 ..Rxd3, doesn't White have Ne5 forking the Rd3 and Bg4?

Edit: After Ne5, Black has ..Rd2+ but then Ke1?

Edit2: Ok ok.. Black's fine. Final line:

Bd3 ..Nxf2 Kxf2 ..Rxd3 Ne5 ..Rd2+ Ke1 ..Rxg2 Nxg4 ..Rxg4

hi, yes this is a beginner's video (u1300 uscf); there are plenty of intermediate players (1300-1700 uscf) who might not know this endgame, but the video should be accessible and understandable to a player rated between 1000 and 1300 uscf. your 1500 in correspondence might be 1300 or 1400 uscf, it's hard to know because correspondence and over the board are very different.

you should definitely be able to understand this video, as far as my intentions go, so if you are not able to understand it, i need to make some adjustments. please give me any further feedback either here or by private message. thanks!

hi David

first , i would like to thank u, very nice and clear 

just wonder, is that a begginers video ? looks quite complicate :-( think i have to watch less complex videos ( im rated about 1500 in this site, can u ppl say what u think of it ? is it complicate only 4 me ??? )

Thanks again, very interesting !

no special reason daghastly. it doesn't make a big difference which way he takes. the position is close to equal, but black's development lead still gives him a slight edge in the endgame, which could perhaps turn into a weaness (like the doubled pawns in the game) or dissipate into nothing.

at 4:05 into the video, why capture with the rook instead of the bishop?

"Master class points!" Nice.

exellent video.  It makes a player (beginner or intermediate) think.  I don't know theory, but looking at options like this, I will (hopefully) make better decisions because of the presentation.

Hope to see more videos like this one---

thanks chess soldier. note that the timing of pushing g3 in this example matters-- unless you have an extra tempo left on the queenside with a7-a6, then you're good no matter what.

I wish chess.com would do more videos where they show plans like this.  Now I know that if my opponent has three pawn islands and I have an advanced king, I should freeze the king by attacking the weakest pawn, trade the middle, then slide across and eat the other pawns.  I might have tried something like centralizing here and trying to calculate a long opposition struggle to make a breakthrough.  Now I know better.  Thanks, David.

nxavar, the pawn endgame was considered a draw, so white did not know he could lose with the rook trade. Rubinstein's "novelty" was a whole plan--> bring the king to h1, immobilize the queenside, then advance and trade the kingside pawns to open a road for his king along the third rank.

yes, it was a mistake for white to trade rooks, but nobody other than Rubinstein knew that at the time, so other players would have played Rc1 as well.

I have two questions: a) At what point was the novelty played, and b) which phase of the endgame was thought as drawn. The rook endgame or the pawn endgame? The way the endgame was analysed makes me conclude that Rubinstein's opponent blundered with giving Rubinstein the option of trading the rooks and that's what gave Rubinstein the win. That is, no novelty played but the fate of the game was decided by a blunder.

Thanks David, your lessons have really helped me.

Keep them coming!

thanks guys, glad these are good for you.

Gabriel, i've added the pgn here so you should be able to download it with a click to the right of the video. white was Erich Cohn.

thank you david