Exchange Down Endgames
Submitted by
Loomis on Thu, 05/15/2008 at 5:46am.
We all learn fairly quickly that rooks are stronger than bishops and knights. But sometimes in the endgame you can make up for the deficit of the exchange if you have dynamic pawn play. Of course, the objective will be to promote a pawn safely.
We pick up the first example with white a pawn up but most likely losing the pawn on c4. White realizes pretty quick that if he gives up the exhange by trading rook for knight on c4 he can also win black's f and h pawns. Two pawns are enough compensation for the exchange, especially since white will have 3 connected passed pawns. Let's check it out:
In the second example I had lost the exchange earlier in the game and had been scraping for a draw. In the end my opponent slipped up and let me get aggressive pushing a pawn. A nifty tactic to ensure the queening of the pawn ended the game.