During my game against James Tarjan at the US Open last week, I swore that I would write an article on pawn endgames. The entire game was crazy and lasted six hours, two of which we spent on figuring out how to play the pawn endgame. Although ther...
Welcome back! It is time to wrap up our rook endgame series. In the previous four articles (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 & Part 4), I covered important rook endgame positions and ideas. Now I'd like to present couple of games that illustrate the fun...
The third world chess champion Jose Raul Capablanca once famously said : "In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before anything else; for whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middlegame and th...
Hi guys! It is been a while since my last post - "Rook Endgame Essentials - Part 2". It is time to enhance our understanding. In this article, we are going to cover the third part of the rook endgame essentials. Let's begin with an example ...
I am back with part two of our rook endgame essentials topic. In this article, I am going to cover few more positions that need to be known by heart. Knowing the basics is extremely important in any field. It increases chances that you will make t...
Chess is a game of dramatic possibility. Within a few moves, the number of potential positions is in the millions. Soon, there are more permutations than a human could count in a lifetime. This is well known; you sometimes hear that there are mo...
"I detest endgames!" said Dawid Janowski more than 100 years ago. He elaborated further by saying that a good chess game should be decided in the middlegame. Today such an opinion would make most professional chess players smile, but please reme...
It may not be a game of inches, but chess often comes down to a slight advantage. Sometimes, we have to take initiative to create opportunities, which is often the case in king and pawn endgames. If your skills are raw in this common scenario, ref...
In the age of endgame tablebases and engines rated 3300+, it is difficult to imagine a relatively basic endgame that even grandmasters have difficulties to play and evaluate. The endgame "two bishops vs. a rook" with all pawns on ...
Target Skill Range: Advanced Path (Rated 1800-1999) Tasks: Develop "endgame thinking." Master king activity in the endgame. Understand the winning and drawing chances of opposite-colored bishops. Improve your understanding of en...
Target Skill Range: Advanced Path (Rated 1899-1999) Tasks: Improve your understanding of piece imbalances in the endgame. Study common endgame types which arise from your opening repertoire. Win queen versus rook. Improve your e...
Everyone’s had the unfortunate experience of playing an opposite-colored bishop ending. Like a mirage, you never know how they got there, and you definitely didn’t intend on it. Nevertheless, they have arrived. These mirages don’...
Endgames should be simple. Right? With a majority of pieces removed from play, calculation becomes minimal. Wrong! At one time or another, you may have found yourself on the losing side of a winning endgame. Perhaps you've been fortunate e...
Let us begin with a small challenge. Take a look at the following diagram: It is the starting position, stripped of all pieces except kings. If you managed to examine it without a yawn, eye roll, or grimace, you have passed the test . ...
Zugzwang in chess seems like a simple concept: being forced to move even when it's disadvantageous. To me, zugzwang is the saudade of chess; a straightforward idea on the surface, but a profound and fascinating concept on the in...
The study of theoretical endgames is a necessary evil. For most players, it is a rather torturous experience simply because there is no room for innovation or creativity. However, as any strong gandmaster will tell you, there are several th...
Last week, we dissected Magnus Carlsen's positional mastery by examining two of his finest strategic victories. However, modern chess demands universality, and it is impossible to become world champion and attain the highest rating in history thro...
After winning the Mexico City tournament in 2007, Viswanathan Anand had become the world champion. Anand defended his title for a first time by defeating Vladimir Kramnik in the 2008 match held in Bonn, Germany, He again defende...
After defeating Veselin Topalov in their 2006 match, Vladimir Kramnik was officially the undisputed world champion -- although he had been largely regarded as such since his 2000 match victory over Garry Kasparov. In 2007, a round robin tourname...
Many beginners tend to assume that pawn endings are easy to master. After all, with material so limited, how hard can it be to untangle the complexities of any given position? The answer, as any endgame maven will tell you, is unequivocal: ...
So far, I have only been covering the world championship matches where the title actually changed hands. However, since this series has turned into not just a look at the instructive and beautiful endgames played at the highest level of chess, b...
By 1990, Garry Kasparov had done what nobody had done before since the creation of the world championship: defended his title multiple times against the clearly best challenger. All in all, he and Anatoly Karpov played five quite grueling matches ...
With Anatoly Karpov having "inherited" the world title, he was eager to win as many tournaments as possible to prove that he was worthy of the title. And this he did. Besides winning such tournaments as Milan 1975, Las Palmas 1977, Bugojno 1978...
After Bobby Fischer won the world championship in 1972, he was a hero -- not just in the U.S., but for chess players everywhere. But being a hero is not for everyone. Always hard-working and ambitious, Fischer had fought more against himself tha...
In our exploration of the endgames from the world title matches, we have now reached the most famous of all matches -- the so-called "Match of the Century." Besides the unusual and brilliant character of Bobby Fischer, this match is so well reme...