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,... Read more »
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, ... Read more »
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 ... Read more »
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 ... Read more »
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... Read more »
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... Read more »
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... Read more »
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 ... Read more »
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... Read more »
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... Read more »
I love endings and helping others learn to play. I placed 5th in my section at the World Open, won a recent U1600 with a perfect score, and aim to one day be a chess master. :)