Endgame Zugzwang: The Whammies, and the Non-Whammies.

This is a blog about learning how to play endgames and blah blah blah. You say you are already bored? Well, get up anyway! We are about to explore the endgame, and not boring, but FUN! The first one is an easy one. Just tell me if White is winning, or if it is a draw! Solve this and you get points. Throughout all of my blogs from now, you will get points for each one you get correct.

1 point. This is easy. But they get harder.

Who is winning here? 5 points.

10 points. For the dudes who did solve all of them, we know that Zugzwang is the key for this! Other forms of Zugzwang appear in pawn endgames a lot! So let us head over to our buddy, the pawn! Pawn says," We are very handy in endgames, if the player moves us correctly. We can force the pawn structure to move in such a way so they can't move, and the king does the rest for us! This can be an example!

Who is winning here? Black? Or White? Or is it the dreaded draw? This one gets 100 points.

"The answer." It is Ka3! Then Kb6, or Ka6, we have Kb2, and after Ka5, we have Kb3!! which forces an immediate reaction that will fail. Notice that this is the starting position, with black to move! Kb6, Now we have Kc2! and Ka5 we go Kd2! Kb4 Kd3, wins, and Ka4, Ke3 or Kd3 wins. Don't feel bad if you didn't solve this! Now, we go to the rook! Rook says," We can easily adjust, to have 3,2,1 moves to get to a square! Which is why we are good at Zugzwang too! Here is a study from Richard Reti which can prove that this is true.

90 points. Hopefully this illustrated zugzwang. Now, let's dig deeper! Mutual Zugzwang, is for positions like this in the endgame.

1 point. This is how mutual zugzwang works. You have the move, You win, or lose! The opponent has the move, they win or lose, like in the ending position of this puzzle, black wins if it is white's turn, but it is his turn, so he loses.