Chess.com for Tigers: 4. How to win where Nakamura only scored a draw

Updated: Feb 9, 2024, 2:56 PM | 10

(Updated on May 5th, 2021*)

Here is something Simon Webb probably would have liked very much.

Again, it’s about the use of the Chess.com explorer.

And I have a very important message here (even some experienced users here might not know that): You can use the opening explorer also in endgames, and it can be very helpful there. It can even help you to win in a position in which Nakamura only scored a draw.

But this needs some explanation.

As mentioned previously, the explorer contains full matches. (Learn how to access it here.)

Usually, you are going to lose archived positions with your line at the end of the opening, and you will “have” to play without explorer assistance through the middle game. (Needless to say that this is the “real” playing …)

In the middle-game, of course, the explorer usually is nothing more than a testing tool, without any of your positions to be found (however, a useful one, particularly if you want to plan several moves in advance).

But that might change in the endgame again. Not many master’s games are fully played to the end, but of course, the endgames, even if rare, consist of very few pieces, and thus typical positions again.

In my experience, this happened not so rarely (if I made it into a classic endgame at all ... ). I guess it depends on the position: If the outcome is clear, there will be little or no games. But then it will be rather clear for you as well. Yet if the result is only theoretically clear, but you have many (or at least some) options to make a mistake, not all, but probably more players would try their luck. And of course these are the games where following the lines indeed may be interesting for you! Rook against rook and pawn (as here) obviously is such a case. Also probably some not so simple pawn-endgames. Yet even in King and pawn vs King endgames I found sometimes positions until the final stalemate.

So you might suddenly detect your positon there again – two pawns each, or a rook versus a rook and a pawn, things like that.

And, to make that clear once more: The use of the opening (!) explorer is allowed in the endgame as well, as in fact, it is a database of games, and it is not restricted on openings. A real table base (a huge document with all possible positons in an endgame, and the necessary move to win or draw) must not be used here. However, a database like the explorer contains just really played, archived games, but not every possible endgame position. Yet if your position can be found in the (explorer) database, it is almost as good as a table base. (Only that if your opponent leaves the database line, you might be in unknown terrain again, while a table base would help you further on.)

So if you have, by chance, such an archived position, and you see a line that gives your color 100% winning chances – wouldn’t you like to follow that line? Of course.

But would your opponent follow that line, if he uses the explorer too (which is not unlikely)? Well, he could at least try something different, at least, because if not, his defeat would be sure.

So one day I found myself in an endgame with a rook and a pawn for me, and a rook for my opponent. I had fought hard for this pawn, and I was literally surprised and disappointed at the same moment, when I found our position in the explorer – my side played by Hikaru Nakamura, against Fabiano Caruana! And Nakamura had only reached a draw …

It was a speed game of course, but nevertheless I assumed both of them knew what to do there. I already had a suspicion, I looked up a book, and right: The conditions for draw were fulfilled.

However, such an endgame still has to be played without mistakes. (By both.)

What do you do? Play like Nakamura vs. Caruana? Which means, if your opponent also uses the explorer, he could follow this line – and secure the draw.

So it was clear that Nakamura’s line did not necessarily win. Neither line would. But I could deny my opponent the option to follow the secure draw line of Caruana.

So I left Nakamura's line. I had to play carefully, as you can lose either your pawn or even your rook as well.

To cut it short: Even later on, I stumbled over other draw lines. But I followed my concept. Avoid the draw lines. I developed a moving pattern which my opponent followed, until I had him in a position where again, the explorer showed archived games – but now with 100 % winning chances for me. (Well, at that point, I wouldn’t have needed these hints any more. It was obvious then that I had won.)

Two moves later my opponent gave up.

Of course, if he had made no mistake, he should have achieved a draw one way or the other.

But we all make mistakes. You make mistakes. Your opponents make mistakes. So if you are in a position that should be a draw, but that could still be won, you should play like a tiger.

And a tiger does not grant his victim the opportunity to follow a line which would guarantee them to save their ass.

Good luck!

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* When I wrote this blog, I was pretty new on chess.com, and one simple reason why I did not post the game I had played there was that I just did not know then how to reproduce that game anonymously. Yet I know meanwhile, so I decided to add that game at least now. And doing so, I also noticed that - for whatever reasons - I had confused the colours of the explorer game I referred to: Nakamura was black, and Caruana was white, so by correcting that, I even had to change the title of this blog now. I deeply apologize to everybody who has been mislead by that so far ... (and of course also, unbeknownst, to Fabiano Caruana).