The easiest way to win a King+rook VS King endgame.
So, sometimes you may get a position where you are left with just a king and a rook while your opponent is left with just a king. You should be able to win these endgames but how? Today I am going to teach you the simplest way to win such an endgame. It may not be the fastest way, or what an engine suggests, but I can guarantee you that it is the simplest way and that you will be able to apply it in every situation you come across this endgame.
So lets look at the above position, white to play.
So the first thing to do is cut of a row like this
This cuts of the e1-e8 row from the enemy king, he now cannot cross that row and is restricted to a1-d1-d8-a8. As we continue, we will slowly make this box smaller and smaller until we check mate him.
The next thing we need to do is bring in our king to help. So a possible continuation could go like this.
Now, over here, the black king is threatening our rook so we must move him as far as possible on the same row.
The next thing we need to do is force the black king to come directly in front of our king after which we give him a check with our rook.
Now the king is forced to step back. And that's basically it! Now all you have got to do is repeat that until you check mate him. A possible continuation is this.
So pretty simple right? Remember that if your enemy king moves back before he is forced to do so just keep on cutting of rows from the king. Like this
And then just bring your king in a repeat the above steps.
So that's pretty much it. I hope you liked it and I hope you learnt the simplest way to win this extremely important endgame. If you have any questions feel free to comment below. Thanks.
If you want to view a video version of this blog you can do so here-
