Never Give Up In Chess—Chasing The Enemy King
Have you ever felt that all hope was lost in a game? In a recent 10-minute blitz game, my position in the endgame was weak. My opponent and I were evenly matched in pawns. Although I still had a rook and knight, his queen was whittling down my pieces and moving closer to attack my king.
In the opening, my opponent, playing White, started out strong and continued to build an advantage. After 19 moves, my queen was trapped but I at least salvaged some value by taking a bishop and rook when I lost my queen. In the next 15 moves, my opponent began simplifying and forcing trades. The following diagram shows the board position after 34 moves, when in desperation, I checked his king with my rook.
The only advantage that I had was two more minutes of playing time than my opponent; however, he still had almost four minutes remaining on his clock, so he shouldn’t have been too concerned about the time. On his 36th move, when he moved f3 to dislodge my knight, I decided to keep my knight near his king. Because I wanted to bring my rook closer to Black’s king and try to achieve a version of the Arabian mate, I moved Nf2, which in post-game analysis, Stockfish labels as a mistake (Stockfish indicates that Nf6 is my best move). Rather than attacking my knight with his king (Kg3), he moved his queen, evidently to attack my knight or rook later. The following diagram shows the board position after his 37th move (Qb5).
If I could advance my h-pawn to h4, I might have a chance to save the game. I ignored his queen and moved h5, one space away from where I could block his king. In response, he moved Kg3 to attack my knight, which Stockfish indicates is an inaccuracy (his best move is attacking the knight instead with Qe2). To avoid thinking too long about the next move, I simply checked his king with Nh1+ (and was surprised to learn after the game from Stockfish that this move is the best one for me). His best choice now is Kf4, the move he made. The following diagram shows the board position after his 39th move.
In a blitz game when all hope is (almost) lost, a vulnerable enemy king is worth chasing. In this game at least, it was the difference that turned the fortunes upside down. Of course, a critical blunder by an opponent helps, too.
Thanks for reading! What would you have done in this game? Would you have kept up the fight?
Ray Linville’s high point as a chess player occurred when he swiped the queen of GM Hikaru Nakamura in a 60-second bullet game in 2021. This game was reported in a “My Best Move” column of the Chess Life magazine, published by the U.S. Chess Federation.
At Chess.com, he has been an editor (part-time) since 2019 and has edited news articles and tournament reports—including those of the Candidates and World Championship Tournaments and other major events—by titled players and noted chess writers as well as Game of the Day annotations by leading grandmasters. He has also been a contributing writer of chess terms, e-books, and general interest articles for ChessKid.com.
He enjoys “top blogger” status at Chess.com. His blog has won the award for Best Chess Blog from the Chess Journalists of America for several years. In addition, he has also been the recipient of first-place CJA awards for feature article, humorous contribution, online review, and educational lesson as well as honorable mention in the categories of personal narrative and historical article.