This article may be too simple for some readers, but in my Bishop and Pawn vs Bishop and Centurini Position articles I frequently said Q vs B is an easy win. Then I witnessed this tragicomedy, and thought maybe I should offer a couple tips! ...
A Centurini Position is one where one of the two diagonals in front of the pawn is less than four squares in length. These are almost always won. In this lesson we'll consider three Centurini Positions of increasing diffic...
If Knight endgames are about flashy tactics, Bishop endgames are about subtle finesse. First, the obvious cases. If the defender can put his king in front of the pawn, on a square that can't be attacked by the enemy bishop, it's a d...
Simba writes, Thanks for posting [Karpov-Hort, Budapest 1973] and your commentary which is very informative. Got one question: What does 'spare tempi in zugzwang situations' mean when white moved g5 in move 35? Zugzwang means...
This ending is a great example of how a bishop, knight, and king can work together. It's shamelessly stolen from Analysis on The ENDGAME by ugralitan, but his article didn't cover these lines. I hope you will find this annotated game enjoy...
Rook and Pawn vs Rook endings are the most common ending in practice, and they're more complex than most players realize. Rook Endings - [External] An introduction to Lucena and Philidor. Lucena, not so simple? - An average player believes he...
Not Quite Lucena positions feature the attacker's pawn on the sixth rank with his king in front of the pawn and are quite common in practice. This is the final article in my series on Lucena. You may want to read through the earlier ones here,...
Not Quite Lucena positions feature the attacker's pawn on the sixth rank with his king in front of the pawn... they're quite common in practice. If you haven't already, I recommend reading my last two articles, Lucena I and Lucena II, ...
An interesting position, very similar to Lucena, is when the attacker's pawn is on the sixth rank with his king in front of it. If Black plays carefully and checks from the side he can draw, but in practice the defender mucks it up 80% of the ...
Lucena is the most important position in Rook & Pawn vs Rook endings, so why do most books use only one or two diagrams to explain it? Let's begin with a quiz. White to move. If you had the White pieces, which of the above positions could ...
I've been studying Rook vs Pawn endings. Would you guess, in 54% of games the pawn suffices for a draw?! Read on to learn the secrets. 1. The Force FieldIn the simplest case, you prevent the enemy king from accompanying his pawn. If his pawn a...
White to move. I'm a thief, and I'll admit it. Loomis posted this excellent position in his blog entry a year ago, and now I'm covering it here (with permission):First, the easy part. White can blockade the queenside pawns with his kni...
To master an endgame, you must learn the general rules and you must practice them. We did the first step in Knight vs Blocked Pawns. Now we tackle the second step.White to move. Dvoretsky, 2000. With our newfound knowledge, this position is too si...
loomis recently noticed that my Seven Rules of Knight Endings was missing the important situation of blocked pawns. This post corrects that. Knights should defend passed pawns from behind, as that often makes them immune from capture by the enemy ...
1. Botvinnik's Rule: Knight Endings are Pawn Endings - The techniques that win in a pawn ending (breakthroughs, shouldering, zugzwang, outside pawns) also work in knight endings. Imagine the knights gone and ask what the winning plan is--80% o...
A recent knight vs knight endgame between two super-GMs. According to Botvinnik's Rule, a draw is likely; but this position certainly has some play. [Note: Add 23 to the diagram's move numbers--chess.com misnumbered them.] &n...
Positions we cannot grasp are exactly those we must strive to understand. I assembled the top 25 such endgames and will highlight the errors.1. Alekhine-Tartakower, Hamburg 1910 1-02. Czerniak-Villegas, Mar De Plata 1943 1-0In his better days Beni...
While studying possible variations of the game Burmakin-Schmittdiel, Oberwart 2002 I happened across the following pawn endgame:Black to move. How could he have drawn this position?Attempts:Takchess took a stab at it. 1..Kf7 2.h5 h6 3.Ke5 Ke7 4.f5...
Vitaly Chekhover was a master on knight endings. He once wrote an entire book on the subject with the help of Yuri Averbakh.Black to move. In this composition, immediately pushing the f- or h-pawns obviously leads to failure. What's less obvio...
Wednesday, September 05, 2007 Knight vs Pawn If the knight is able to occupy or threaten any square in the pawn's path, except a corner squ...
King vs King & Pawn is a simple ending, so why am I covering it? Some fellow bloggers are just learning it. Also, some players rely completely on maxims such as:"In K vs. K+P endings move the defending King straight back and straight in f...
"The Curse of the Rook Pawn" Update 8/17/2008: Repaired images and diagrams. You may have to reload this page 1-2 times to get all 8 interactive diagrams to appear. Every Wednesday, visit my column to learn a new endgame. ...
"The Square of the Passed Pawn" Every Wednesday, visit my column to learn a new endgame. See what happens to players who don't know the secret I'm about to share with you? Suppose you have a passed pawn that you want to promote...
