Important endgames for juniors

[Jonathan Rogers]

oh right you are, White was forced into it. Ok then, use it as an example of good winning technique, on the basis that Giri would have needed to see ...Rd1 some way in advance.

[Michael Jones]

You lot evidently teach a rather more exalted level of juniors than me - I reckon I'm doing well if I can get all my bunch managing to win with K+Q vs K!

[Jonathan Rogers]

well, this is really a section for adults. we just like to think that it's only juniors who need to work on their endgames.

Here is another one - the board four game in England v Brazil

http://ugra-chess.com/livegames?gameid=100008024&tmnt=2

Black (Brazil) drew the endgame after capturing the second white pawn on b4, at move 54, leaving the familiar wrong coloured rook pawn.

BUT note that she was winning until she took the pawn on b4.

The correct way to win is to zugzwang the white king on a1 (black bishop on b1, king on c1) forcing White to play 1 b5 axb5 2 b4 Bd3 etc when Black now has a b-pawn. Or if White moves the king away from a1, say to a3, then Black's king comes from behind (c1-b1 etc) and the bishop on d3 holds the pawn on a6.

Worth knowing. (I know this because of Short v Kasparov, Belgrade 1989). Note that this only works because White has two b-pawns. Otherwise there would be no way around the stalemate problem (1.b5 axb5 would be stalemate. White's trouble with the second b pawn is that she is able to move it and so is not stalemated after ...axb5).

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Thanks for posting these instructive endgames, Jonathan, as I'm one of the adults finding them useful!

Might it be an idea to post some of them in the new thread I started called "Games from the Olympiad"?

Anyway, here is an endgame from the Olympiad from a few rounds ago (round 3, in fact) that I found instructive:

http://ugra-chess.com/liveboard?gameid=1001030462

Duilio Collutiis, a 2447 Italian IM playing for the ICSC team was up against Marc Simonet, a 2277 FM playing for Andorra. I thought the position reached at move 48 was drawn (despite White being the exchange down), but Simonet managed to grind out a win. In particular, moves 75 to 81 made me realise how it is possible to win such positions, and the final position is a lovely zugzwang: WK on g6, WB on h5, WP on f3, BK on f4, BR on h4 and BP on g5, with White to move.

[Maxim Devereaux]

An interesting endgame here today, in a match in which I was maintaining an interest, which you can tablebase from move 62 onwards.

http://ugra-chess.com/liveboard?gameid=1000100292

Not great play by either side, but it's interesting to see how it should be drawn (and won).

[Michael Jones]

Another interesting one - http://www.ugra-chess.com/liveboard?gameid=1000100232

R + f- and h-pawns vs R is a theoretical draw, but IIRC Kramnik managed to win it against Aronian at Wijk aan Zee a couple of years ago.

[Roger de Coverly]

R + f- and h-pawns vs R is a theoretical draw,

I think that needs to be qualified by "sometimes".

According to the 6 man tablebase at
http://www.shredderchess.com/online-che ... abase.html
the position in the Meri game after 60 Kxh4 is lost.

I haven't checked it move by move to see where it became a draw.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I found another endgame that is quite instructive as well, though the final move appears to be wrong (it loses, so might be a board error when resetting the pieces):

http://ugra-chess.com/liveboard?gameid= ... 033&tmnt=1

That's the game Onischuk-Rodshtein from the USA-Israel R10 match. It seems (if you ignore the last move) that Black just manages to get his king back in time to avoid defeat. It's the sort of thing I would hate to have to calculate at 30 second increments!

[Michael Jones]

R + f- and h-pawns vs R is a theoretical draw,

I think that needs to be qualified by "sometimes".

According to the 6 man tablebase at
http://www.shredderchess.com/online-che ... abase.html
the position in the Meri game after 60 Kxh4 is lost.

I haven't checked it move by move to see where it became a draw.

Note to self: remember to check sources before posting something that I vaguely recall reading somewhere a few years ago...