Rook endgames you need to know (Free video follows along)
Rook endgames video title
Today you will learn about the most important endgame of them all!As put by none other than Mark Dvorestky, legendary chess coach of the soviet and later Russian chess school.
They arise the most often as the minor pieces and the queen gets quickly in the game. Hence, they are more likely to be traded leaving us with a rook endgame.
We will start with the most fundamental endgame one analyzed in 1777 by Phildor, namely the Philidor position. Chess legend of the far past who is well known for saying “pawns are the soul of chess”.
Here with the black pieces there is an easy way to hold the position. You simply hold the rook on the 6th rank. As quickly as white pushes their pawn to the 6th rank you go from behind. Moving the rook to the first rank is the most technically correct move. Though putting it on other rank such as the 2nd and 3rd also hold the draw. If you are wondering why moving the rook to the first rank is the most technical it is because the rook is keeping a distance from the king when it will later deliver checks from behind. You will be able to deliver more checks before whites king gets to you.
Is the game lost if white is able to play Kf6 so that they can meet Rb6+ check with e6?
This was the belief of Philidor based on the following variation when white will be able to promote their pawns!
However No! We need to have knowledge of the long and of the short side! What side would you guess that the king has to go to as it is under when it is under a mate threat in the following diagram? To the short side! What is the short side? It is the side that is less than three squares. My coach showed me a picturesque example. He took my hand and placed it on three lines. This was a visual indication that the short side is less than three squares. To remember something, having some emotions attached to the memory increases the likelihood as is the case for my experience.
Here is the correct way to treat the postion starting with putting an eye on the opponents pawn with your rook:
The long side after lengthy analysis does prove to hold the draw as well but is less technical. However, this obviously does not work for f and g pawns.
In the next diagram, do you think that Rg1 attacking the pawn from behind works? Unfortunately it does not work!
It turns out that white will be able unpin themselves by playing Rg8 in this position and getting the king to h7. Later white will be able to obtain the Lucena position.
How to win the lucena position? Funnily enough it was not analyzed in Lucena´s book in 1497. We deliver a check upon our opponents king forcing him to move after which we will be able to build a bridge by putting the rook on the 4th rank from where it will guide against the opponent´s rook´s checks. Rook will go to the 5th rank to block checks if necessary.
How do you evaluate this position?
It turns out it is not possible to make progress here as white can not improve the position of their rook without losing their pawn. If white tries to get their king to defend the a-pawn black will simply use their rook to check the king from behind. Only danger for black is to put the king on any other square rahter than h7 or g7. In that case there would either be Rh7 as after Kf7 or the rook will give a check and the pawn will promote if the king will go to the 6th rank.
Here there is a final position with a slight placement difference of the pawn. Write in the comment section of YouTube video the evaluation of this position. I will reply in the comments if you got it right or not.
I hope I was able to help you learn some new endgames with this blog. To make sure the information sits even deeper I would recommend that you watch the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkjI26-5qPs
My coach who is a strong grandmaster has indeed stated that for something to be remember it is good if you study the information in different ways. For instance you could also play through some of these positions with a friend to check that you learned these endgames well.
Noam signing out and see you next Tuesday!
PS. Do check out the following links for more content: https://cutt.ly/ejdNMTI
