Rook vs. Three Connected Passed Pawns

This position arose in a game that I played Wednesday morning online. It is a technical draw, but my opponent erred along the way.

White to move

Several moves earlier, I could have reached a favorable ending with the same material, except that my  understanding of rook vs. three connected passed pawns was deficient. 

Black to move

In haste to eliminate the passed b-pawn, I played 54...Rb1

54...Rd3 is better, as it prepares to get behind the b-pawn while also protecting the h-pawn with a threat on the f-pawn. 

55.Kxh3

Black to move

Tablebases reveal that Black has two winning moves here, but they do not explain the reasoning. I've spent a bit of time playing through tablebase lines in search of understanding.

I started looking through the 65 endgame books on my shelf. Few books are helpful. Reuben Fine, Basic Chess Endings has three pages on rook vs. three pawns, but these have limited application to the position before me. Ilya Rabinovich, The Russian Endgame Handbook has a page and a half with some of the same illustrative positions found in Fine. I have this book both in a print version and in the Forward Chess app.

Some useful analysis appears in Sam Shankland, Theoretical Rook Endgames.

In the game, I played 55...Rxb4?? 56.Kg3 Kg7 to reach the diagram at the top of the page. After several more moves, we reached this position.

White to move

My opponent's move here was the decisive error, but it took me quite a few more moves to find the winning idea.

65.Ke4??

Either 65.Kf2 or 65.Kg2 holds the draw.

Shankland has this position.

Black to move

Shankland points out that the king needs to step back and shuffle the king between g7 and h7. The h-pawn is secure because otherwise Black's other two pawns became a serious threat, although White can hold the draw. Shankland does not analyze this line in detail, stating only, "White is lucky not to be lost" after snatching the h-pawn (373). When I played the White side against two students on Thursday, I failed to hold the draw after snatching the pawn.

Shankland's position differs from that in my game, but the idea of shuffling the king back and forth on the second rank could have been known to my opponent from Theoretical Rook Endgames.

How Could I Win?

Back to the position after 55.Kxh3. My haste to eliminate the b-pawn was an error. Instead, there were two winning moves that I could have played. Lines following from either move require me to centralize my king.

a) 55...Kg7!

The best move, according to Stockfish.

After 56.Kg3, only one move wins.

Black to move

56...Kf6! 57.h4 Ke5!

Again, there was only one winning move.

58.f4+ Ke4!

Another only move.

White to move

After 59.b5, 59...Rg1+ is the shortest distance to mate.

59.g5 is the longest distance to mate, and now Black has 59...Kf5.

b) 55...Rg1 was also winning.

56.b5 Kg7! 57.b6 Kf6 58.f4

Black to move

58...Ke6!

The only winning move.

59.b7 Rb1

At this point, not earlier, it is necessary to stop the passed b-pawn. Afterwards, Black's king will move to d5 and then e4. For example, 60.Kg3 Rxb7 61.Kh3 Rb3+ 62.Kg2 Kd5 63.h3 Ke4 64.f5

Black to move

The pawn chain is vulnerable because of the placement of Black's pieces. Shankland's defensive idea fails here because the pawns all need to advance one square further.

In two games this week, I prevailed with a rook against three pawns. Analysis of these games showed that there is much that I can learn about these endings, which can often lead to interesting positions demanding precise play. 22 years ago, I chose to exchange my last rook for one of my opponent's rooks, reaching a ending where I had three connected passed pawns against a rook. I drew that game, but only because my opponent missed the right idea in a critical position. That is the subject of tomorrow's post, “Endgame Gambit”.

Failed Twice

On Friday morning, I spent about ten minutes struggling with this chess problem, then gave up and looked at the answer in the back of the book. Friday's failure was a repeat of the same process with the same problem several months ago.

White to move and win

It was composed by Oldrich Duras and published in Deutsche Schachzeitung (October 1908), 310. The solution was published in January.

I encountered the position in Sergey Ivashchenko, The Manual of Chess Combinations, vol. 2 (2002). Reuben Fine presents it without a diagram in Basic Chess Endings (1941), 121.

While attempting to solve the puzzle, I had a faint recollection of some of the key ideas from a study by Alexey Troitzky that I had spent some time with last summer after getting a copy of Yuri Averbakh, Bishop Endings (1977). Troitzky's study also appears sans diagram in Fine, Basic Chess Endings.

White to move

I could recall the bishop maneuvers in the Troitzky study, but forgot the importance of the king's position.

In the Troitzky study, White wins with 1.Be6 Ke7 2.h6 Kf6 3.Bf5! 

I remembered this idea.

3...Kf7 4.Bh7

And this paradoxical move.

Black to move

4...Kf6 5.Kf4

This necessary move is not possible in the Duras study. The solution in Deutsche Schachzeitung (January 1909) reaches a similar position after one of the moves that fails, 1.Bc5, and the line was part of what I examined before I gave up.

Most of my effort, however, was spent trying to make 1.Bd6 work. That move was also the first one that FM Jim Maki tried when I showed him Duras's study during a youth chess tournament on Saturday. Black's drawing idea of the king taking refuge on and adjacent to the promotion square is one I learned the hard way in a tournament game a quarter century ago (see "A Memorable Lesson").

If Bd6 and Bc5 both fail, how can White win? I know now. Maybe I will remember the next time that I see this study by Duras.

Ten Books to Achieve 1800+

Having seen many lists of top ten chess books recommended for players at different levels, I thought it time to reflect on how books contributed to my rise from C Class to A Class. My first non-provisional rating was 1425 when I was in my mid-30s. I played chess competitively many years earlier, but no events were rated. In the late-1970s, I had a USCF correspondence rating. But when I returned to active play after graduate school, the USCF had lost the records of my postal chess.

I rejoined the Spokane Chess Club in late 1995 and played in my first rated OTB event in March 1996. In October, I played my sixth event and no longer had a provisional rating. By the end of the year, my rating had risen to 1495, but would not rise above that point until 2002. I remained in C Class until fall 2006. While on this plateau, I was gaining both knowledge and skills, but rating progress was slow. Too much online blitz may have held me back.

My journey from wholly ignorant beginner in the late-1960s, to competitive high school player in the late-1970s, to active C Class club member in the mid-1990s involved a lot of book study. Further progress from C Class in my 30s to high A Class in my early 50s included many books, active play, private lessons, chess videos, and I also started coaching elementary students in 2000.

It is no easy matter to choose ten books. By the time I reached A Class, I owned close to 300 chess books and there are very few I had not spent some time reading. At the same time, there are also very few that I read wholly. Some books, or my manner of reading them, may have held me back (just as hundreds of three minute blitz games every month may not have helped me).

The Ten

In November 1996, I played in the Washington Class in Federal Way. There was a book seller set up in one of the rooms near the playing hall. I spent a bit of time there talking with David Weinstock, owner of ChessMate. In our discussions, he recommended a book to me. I was skeptical. The title sounded more basic than my own self-assessment of my needs. Nonetheless, when I found the book at Auntie’s Bookstore when I was back in Spokane, I bought it and started to read it. It was transformative.

Consider my list of ten, pictured above and described below, as a provisional suggestion rooted in experience. What worked for me may or may not work for you. Read all recommendations with skepticism, but also with openness to trying something that might help. There are no magic books guaranteed to improve your chess, but only a few will fail to teach you something of value.

1) Georges Renaud, and Victor Kahn, The Art of the Checkmate (1953) was the book David suggested, and is my first recommendation. Having spent many hours in the 1970s learning the basic checkmates with heavy pieces and even two bishops, and having delivered many fine checkmates in many games, it was hard to believe there was much I could learn from such a book. Reading it, however, exposed me to new checkmate patterns, including some that I had seen, but not absorbed, from a book I studied in 1975: Irving Chernev, The 1000 Best Short Games of Chess (1955). Renaud and Kahn not only taught me new patterns, but they gave me a framework for thinking about checkmate and checkmate threats.

As David Weinstock had, I began to recommend The Art of the Checkmate to any and all who would listen, and also to many who ignore what I say. I still do. This book helped me, and it can help you. But there are other books that could substitute, and might be even better. Victor Henkin, 1000 Checkmate Combinations (2011) takes a slightly different approach. It also teaches an abundance of vital checkmate patterns and greatly exceeds Renaud and Kahn in the amount of study material. Antonio Gude, Fundamental Checkmates (2016) is another option. It is comprehensive and to an extent combines the approaches of Henkin with that of Renaud and Kahn. One can find dozens of other books on checkmate patterns, but these three stand above the others. Get one of them, or even all three.

Vital

2) For a year or longer, Lev Alburt, Chess Training Pocket Book: 300 Most Important Positions and Ideas, 2nd ed. (2000) was my bedside reading. I read it cover-to-cover twice. Alburt’s book was the only tactics book I finished prior to early 2023 when I finished all 1320 exercises in Sergey Ivashchenko, The Manual of Chess Combinations (1999). It is not an ordinary tactics book for practicing basic ideas, but rather, a small set of carefully chosen positions with tactical and positional concepts. It also has a small number of vital endgame positions.

Many grandiose claims have been made by different authors about the legendary 300 positions, but there should be no doubt that careful and deliberate study of a small number of carefully selected positions will take your game up a notch. Alburt’s book helped me. A few years after completing it, I began study of another book focused on 300 carefully selected positions: Rashid Ziyatdinev, GM-RAM: Essential Grandmaster Knowledge (2000). More recently, Thomas Engqvist has gained my attention, now with a trilogy of books containing 300 in the title.

An Idea Worth Considering

3) Quantity matters, too, when it comes to tactics training. A classic that has lifted the skills of generations of chess players has also been part of my training. Fred Reinfeld, 1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations (1955) deserves a place in every chess player’s library. In 2008, I spent quite a bit of time playing these positions against the computer. Often I could find the tactic, achieve a clearly superior position, and yet still fail to defeat HIARCS (see "Where the Rubber Meets the Road"). Reinfeld organizes the chapters by themes—forks, pins, double attacks, and so on. I set my database containing these positions to open randomly so I did not know which theme to look for. But I also use the book, either solving from the diagrams or sometimes setting up the positions on a board.

Endgames have been vital to my success. In 2007-2008, I invested a lot of time teaching some elementary rook endings to my top student, the strongest third grader in my city. That summer, in the Spokane City Championship, I played two rook endings against FM David Sprenkle, drawing one game.

Currently, I’m on a collector’s quest to have 64 endgame texts in my personal library. The quest stems from my enjoyment studying positions with few pieces, my conviction that endgame knowledge is vital for all skill levels, and my involvement in an online community of book lovers, Chess Book Collectors on Facebook. During my rise from the 1500s in 2002 to high-1900s in 2012, much time was invested in endgame study.

4) The endgame book that did the most for me was Mark Dvoretsky, Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual (2003). As one of ten books to recommend to class players, Dvoretsky is a controversial choice. Many players find it too difficult for anyone below master. Poppycock! Chess books are not novels. One does not read every word. Read the part that makes sense and push through a bit that stretches and challenges you. I have read the long chapter on pawn endings in Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual several times and have flash cards containing the 48 blue diagrams that I use for review, study, and teaching (see "Pawn Endings Flash Cards"). I’ve struggled through perhaps half of the chapter on rook endings and made flash cards for the first 24 blue diagrams. Other chapters I have dipped into from time-to-time.

During the years spent studying Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual, other books have also supplemented my work. These include, Bruce Pandolfini, Pandolfini’s Endgame Course (1988); Jeremy Silman, Silman’s Complete Endgame Course (2007); Karsten Müller and Frank Lamprecht, Fundamental Chess Endings (2001); and several others. My top recommendation for those looking to begin endgame study is Yury Averbakh, Chess Endings: Essential Knowledge (1993). There are many choices. Choose that one that you like, but do not neglect the endgame. Make endgame study a priority if you want to play better chess.

Splurge

5) Jacob Aagard, Excelling at Technical Chess (2004) also concerns the endgame. However, it is distinct from the endgame manuals listed above. The core of the book focuses on “seven technical tools”—schematic thinking, weaknesses, domination, do not hurry, passed pawns, how to arrange your pawns, and freaky aspects. Aagaard develops each of these ideas with compelling prose and detailed game analysis. As he states in the beginning, this book follows an approach that has made Mikhail Shereshevsky, Endgame Strategy so highly regarded. The technical tools are worthy of detailed attention, and I hope to find time to explore them in more detail. I blazed through this book is a couple of days, reading all the prose and glancing superficially at the game analysis. However, this superficial reading was enough to transform my game. My endgame play became more resilient. Formerly, I would often offer or accept a draw in seemingly equal positions. After reading the book, I play out most positions to the end, often lone kings. If there is any reason to play on—an imbalance, a weakness of any sort in my opponent’s position, even a better king position—a draw is anathema unless it secures a tournament victory.

Annotated games have always been a regular part of my chess study. In my youth, I spent many hours playing through games from three GM tournaments that resulted in books that I purchased: San Antonio, 1972; Leningrad, 1973 (the 42nd Soviet Championship); and Wijk aan Zee, 1975. In addition, I bought and still have two books by David Levy that were collections of games by specific players: Karpov’s Collected Games: All 530 Available Encounters, 1961-1974 (1975); and Gligoric’s Best Games, 1945-1970 (1972). All these books influenced my play as a teenager as I sought to imitate the play of the world’s elite.

6) In my 40s, I had many more chess books to choose from and studied annotated games from many of them. One source of such games that I returned to frequently is Garry Kasparov, My Great Predecessors, 5 vols. (2003-2006). Kasparov culls some of the best insights from many years of chess literature and presents many of the most important games of every world champion before him, as well as many contenders for that title who fell short. Chess history offers a reliable foundation for the development of chess skill. Although Kasparov does a poor job of documenting his sources (see my Patriots and Peoples blog for examples of sourcing problems in the writing of US history), the series remains an important practical overview of chess history.

7) Paul Morphy’s games are particularly useful to chess players who want to play well. Perhaps one day I will be able to report that I have played through every one of his available games. So far, I have been through at least one-third of them, some of them many times. His eighteen tournament games have been imposed by me on some two dozen students, who have been through all of them. I’ve shown the Opera game to students at least one hundred times and of course know it fully. For insights into Morphy’s play, few books are in league with Valeri Beim, Paul Morphy: A Modern Perspective (2005). This book has enriched my study.

8) Chess Informant was long the indispensable source for current master games from before I took up the game in the 1960s into the twenty-first century. Now, of course, these games are readily available from many sources. In 1996, as I was coming back to chess with some seriousness of purpose, I was curious about Informant, which I had seen only in the USCF sales catalog. At the Washington Class, however, David Weinstock had some on the table. He allowed me to look at them and we talked about how they were organized. A month or so later, I included Informant 64 in an order of books from USCF sales. It aided my correspondence play in a concrete way (see "Playing by the Book"). More importantly, learning the Informant system of codes changed my thought processes during play. There are so many things that one contemplates during a chess game while looking for the right moves or the correct plan. Sometimes these thoughts are noise that interferes with clear focus on what matters. To an extent, the limited analytical possibilities in the Informant codes distills chess down to things that really matter in the quest for advantage.

As I grew as a player, Chess Informant was a useful tool. Today’s Informants are changing with the information explosion and are oriented more towards the needs of class players than they were in the past. Give them a try.

A Growing Collection

Of course, I did not rise from C Class to strong A Class without studying the works of Jeremy Silman. His endgame book is already listed above, although it was less useful to me than Dvoretsky. In fact, the day I bought it, I read everything through the section on B Class, finding very little that I did not know. Silman’s endgame book has done more for my teaching than for my own progress as a player. That’s plenty! His writing is compelling and many of his metaphors and personal anecdotes are unforgettable.

I bought and read (partly, of course) How to Reassess Your Chess, 3rd. ed. (1993); The Reassess Your Chess Workbook: How to Master Chess Imbalances (2001); The Amateur’s Mind: Turning Chess Misconceptions into Chess Mastery, 2nd ed. (1999); and The Complete Book of Strategy: Grandmaster Techniques from A to Z (1998). When it finally came out, I added How to Reassess Your Chess: Chess Mastery through Chess Imbalances, 4th ed. (2010), but my rating had risen above 1800 before then.

9) Of these books, Reassess Your Chess and the companion workbook were most useful in helping centralize imbalances in my thinking. When I need to win a tournament game, seeking imbalances from the very first move often proves vital.

The Complete Book of Strategy did nothing for my game and very little for my teaching. Its usefulness has been so slight that I struggle to show proper supportive enthusiasm when a young student has shown me that they just acquired it. I must remind myself that there is a difference between this book’s presence in a chess library of more than 400 volumes that includes several dictionaries and encyclopedias, and a chess library for which this book is the first book acquired. It is a good book, even though it does not meet my needs.

What about the Opening?

In high school, I spent many hours studying lines in I. A. Horowitz, Chess Openings: Theory and Practice (1964). In the 1990s, Walter Korn, and Nick DeFirmian, eds. Modern Chess Openings, 13th ed. (1990) took its place. Even more time was spent on opening monographs, including several on two related variations of the Sicilian Defense that feature an early e5 push by Black. There is some evidence this study hurt my game, or at least retarded my improvement. I tried to memorize lines and often faltered when my opponents deviated from the lines that I knew.

Use at Your Own Risk

In 2003, I began to switch from the Sicilian to the French as my primary defense against 1.e4. The French Defense is not superior to the Sicilian. It might even be a worse choice, but for me it marked a shift in how I approached opening study. Rather than grinding through lines in a book, I sought understanding of the principles, of basic concepts, such as one finds articulated clearly in José Capablanca, Chess Fundamentals (1921), of the ideas behind the moves. Unquestionably, I learned many lines, but when my opponents deviated from these, I was prepared. My play improved.

Detailed opening study and learning concrete lines has aided my preparation for specific opponents in several cases. At a crucial moment while still a B Class player, I won the Spokane Contender’s tournament, earning a shot at the title of Spokane City Champion. Expectations of victory were nearly non-existent. No one expected a B Class player rated in the 1730s to prevail over FM David Sprenkle, rated in the 2250s, down considerably from his peak. As preparation, I spent close to 40 hours on two semi-obscure variations: the Raphael variation against the Dutch Defense for when I had the White pieces, and a seemingly risky Nh6 idea for Black in the French Advance. It took Sprenkle 72 moves to compel my resignation in the French, and I drew my second game with White. It was a very good day.

Most of the time in tournament play, however, such extensive opening preparation is more of a crap shoot. Unless an opponent walks into your pet line, where is the benefit? Tactics win and lose games. Endgames keep chances alive as players grow weary or hungry.

10) Hence, my tenth recommended book is one that I’ve read very little, but that exemplifies how I have come to believe opening study should be pursued. Reuben Fine, The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings (1943) is out of date in terms of the line presented, as should be expected. But, players of the French Defense well-know that White’s pawn on d4 is always a target. The Sicilian Defense is always grounded in creating pawn imbalances and active piece play in the quest for equality and even winning chances.

Other Books

Many other books helped me in my successful quest to reach A Class, and remain there for fourteen years so far, as well as my quest to rise into Expert Class, falling just short and less a goal in my 60s than it was in my mid-50s. Learning drives me. My knowledge continues to grow even as my performance in competition is less consistent.

Surprisingly Strong Move

In mid-April, I played a move that was better than I thought. I played it in desperation because I was frustrated after reaching what looked like a drawn ending from what seemed like a clear advantage. It was a ten minute game and it sent me to my endgame books as well as extensive engine analysis.

Pawns were exchanged on move 33 and we shuffled our kings and rooks for another 20 moves before I pushed a pawn.

White to move

53.d5!

I expected 53...exd5 54.Kxf5 and maybe I can do something with my f-pawn. But I also thought that would still likely lead to a draw.

53...Kxd5

I was sure this move was an error. It equalizes material, but now Black's king gets cut off.

54.Rd2+ Kc6

I easily won Black's pawns. The rooks came off the board on move 77 and my opponent resigned two moves later.

To my surprise, the engines evaluate 53...Kxd5 as no worse than 53...exd5. That sent me into the endgame books to study rook endings with two pawns to one, three pawns to two, and four pawns to three. Such positions are often drawn.

Catching my eye as suitable for practice was a tragicomedy from Hebden -- Wood, Hastings 1994/1995.

Black to move

Wood's move here resembles what I thought to be an error in my game.

1...Kxf4??

Mark Dvoretsky writes, "A terrible error. The black king will be cut off along the f-file now, and the g7-pawn will be inevitably lost" (Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual, 5th ed. [2020], 189).

Dvoretsky gives two ways to draw. I opted for the harder one against Stockfish on the iPad.

1...g6 2.Rf7+ Ke4 3.Kg4 Ra1 4.Re7+ Kd5

White to move

My king is cut off from the pawns, but White's king has no points for penetration. Nine moves later, Stockfish moved the rook from the e-file, allowing my king to return. Another dozen moves and I offered a chance for the engine to force the exchange of rooks. My confidence that I could draw the pawn ending was grounded upon extensive practice with a pawn ending from Dvoretsky (see "Opposition and Outflanking").

White to move

Stockfish did not opt for 22.Re2+ Rxe2 23.Kxe2 Ke6, which I knew to be drawn. Ten moves more of rook shuffling, and Stockfish pushed a pawn.

Black to move

A Philidor position seems likely, but instead the game concluded with a rook exchange that left lone kings. It was good practice. My play was not error free, but one can also back up against a machine.

Reuben Fine, Basic Chess Endings (1941) offers positions where the weaker side's king is cut off from the pawns. No. 390b is presented without a diagram. No game is referenced, although the pawn structure is close to No. 390 (Saemisch -- Spelmann, Teplitz-Schoenau 1922) with colors reversed. Fine claims that White wins No. 390b (Saemisch was able to hold a draw because his king was with the pawns), according to Fine. Stockfish does not agree.

Black to move

1...Rb7

Stockfish gives 1...Kd6 2.f5 Ra3+ 3.Kf4 Kd7 and better for White by less than a pawn, usually an indication that the game is headed towards a draw.

2.f5 Ra7 3.g5 Kd6 4.h4

Stockfish recommends 4.Re8

4...Ra4 5.Re1

Black to move

5...Ra1

A common idea in such positions, but wrong according to Stockfish.

5...Re3+ 6.Kg4 Kd7 and the engine sees Black holding the position. White's Re8 is not possible.

6.Re8

White will give up the f-pawn for both of Black's pawns after Rg8.

Textbook Ending

 In today's Morning Membership tournament on Chess.com, two players found themselves in a difficult pawn ending with under a minute remaining. The time control was game in five minutes with a two second increment (5+2). White had 18.5 seconds and Black had 38 when Chris started showing the game on Twitch. Chris Bird is the tournament director and streams these weekly events.

Both players shuffled their kings back and forth until a repetition occurred. When players are premoving, as they seemed to be doing, draw offers are often refused even as they are made. It was not clear from Chris's discussion whether he knew that White had a winning position.

In the screenshot, White has just played 51.Kd4.

There was an alternative.

51.Kb5 wins.

After 51.Kb5!

This move can be frightening with less than twenty seconds left, but it is the correct move. White has stepped out of the square of Black's pawn. If White fails to promote first, or set up a checkmate, Black will also promote.

After 51...Kc8, White has two ways to proceed.

52. Kc6, or 52.a6. I played the latter against Stockfish 11, which replied 52...e3.

White to move

Now, only one move wins for White. All others lose.

After 53.b6+, 53...Kc7! leaves White lost. However, 53...Kb8 allows 54.Kb6 and 55.a7#. In one of the textbook lines beginning with 51...Kb8, Black promotes the pawn just before getting checkmated.

53.a6 allows 53...Kb7 and White can make no further progress, while Black's e-pawn cannot be stopped.

53.Kc6! e2 54.b7+

Black to move

54...Kb8 55.Kb6 e1Q Black promotes first, but White checkmates with pawns. Stockfish chose a longer checkmate.

54...Kd8 55.b8Q+ Ke7 56.Qe5+ and White wins.

While watching the Twitch stream, I saw a familiar pattern. After the tournament, I out that my belief that White was winning was indeed correct. Although as a practical matter, with less that twenty seconds remaining, I, too, might have taken the draw.

The textbook position appears in Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual. Consequently, it is a position that I have played out several times with my students (see "Pawn Ending Flash Cards").

White to move

I know the technique through training with positions from Dvoretsky. Likely other books have the position as well, and it appears in Harold van der Heiden's Endgame Study Database. Heiden credits Reuben Fine, Basic Chess Endings (1941), while Dvoretsky credits the nineteenth century composers J. Kling and B. Horwitz.*

In any case, the first critical position is reached after the moves:

1.Kd4 Kg4 2.h4 Kh5 3.Ke3 Kg4 4.Ke4 Kh5 5.Kf4 Kg6 6.g4 Kg7

White to move

7.g5 is a mistake. White can move the king, but the way forward is 7.h5!

7...Kh6 8.Kf3

Heiden has 8.Ke4 here. Dvoretsky's solution is three moves longer, so seems to offer better defense by Black. Both 8.Kf3 and 8.Ke4 have the same number of moves to mate, according to my chess engine.

Dvoretsky points out the importance of triangulation for White.

8...Kg5 9.Ke4 Kh6 10.Kf4 Kh7 11.g5 Kg7 12.g6 (12.h6 loses) 12...Kf6 13.Ke4 Kg7 14.Kf3 Kf6 15.Kf4 Kg7

White to move

Now, White's confidence comes into play, as it is time to leave the square of Black's passed pawn.

16.Kg5 c3 17.h6+ Kg8 18.Kf6 (see the critical Kc6 in my analysis of what might have been above).

18...c2 (so close to becoming a queen!)

19.h7+ Kh8 

White to move

20.Kf7 c1Q

Black promotes, but White will promote with check.

21.g7+ Kxh7 22.g8Q+ Kh6 23.Qg6# 

This ending is worthy of study. Perhaps if your nerves are calm, you can win with a quarter minute and a two second increment should you find yourself is a comparable position.


*Fine, on my reading presents a similar position that is a draw. He does mention winning chances, though, if the pawns on the left are another row to the right of the position illustrated here. There seems some room for some historical research.

Textbook Ending

While continuing to work my way through drawn endgames from my personal database (see "King Position"), I found that I missed a textbook win that I have taught to my chess students. However, my failure dates from 2006 and I've been teaching it since about 2014.

Reuben Fine, Basic Chess Endings (1941) offers this position (No. 40).

White/Black to move

White to move draws, Black to move wins for White.

Mark Dvoretsky, Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual (2003) offers a similar position.

White/Black to move

Again, it is only a win for White if Black is on move. The key, as Dvoretsky points out, is that White's king must occupy h6 while a pawn remains on the second rank, preserving the option of moving one or two spaces. That way, Fine's position can be forced with Black to move.

In a game on Free Internet Chess Server, I had this position.

White to move

1.Kg5 wins.

I played 1.h4 and the game was drawn.

Philidor Position: Historical Note

The Philidor Position in rook endings is one where the weaker side's king stands in front of stronger side's pawn, on or near the promotion square, and in which the weaker side is able to prevent the stronger's king from advancing to the sixth (or third) rank. Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual (2003) offers a typical example (145).* The position is so-named because François-André Danican Philidor was the first to demonstrate the defense in his Analysis of the Game of Chess (1777), 275-282.

With Black on move, moving the rook to almost any square along the b-file holds the draw. 1...Rb6 is the clearest and easiest demonstration of the technique. Philidor noted, "By keeping that line with his rook, he hinders your king from advancing" (275).

Mark Dvoretsky notes that Philidor thought that White could win if he were on move, but later analysis has revealed that he is wrong on this point. In Philidor's position, White is on move, but his initial setting differs in one important respect from Dvoretsky's diagram. The pawn has advanced to the fifth rank in Dvoretsky.

Philidor presents the following position.

White to move

After the moves 1.e5 Rb6 2.Ra7, the position is almost identical to Dvoretsky's with only the Black rook on a different square. With Black on the move, Dvoretsky's key move creates the position in Philidor's analysis, but in Philidor Black is still on move. In some positions, such a transfer of the side to move proves critical, but here it is not so.

Philidor gives 2...Rc6 with the comment: "He ought not to depart from this line with his rook, but at the very instant when you push your pawn" (277).

3.e6 Rc1

"If he had given check, he would have lost the game" (Philidor).

4.Kf6 Rf1+

Philidor asserts, "He must continue to give you check, in order to drive you away from your pawn; and at the very moment when your king falls upon his rook, he will attack and take your pawn" (277).

Philidor's Back-Game**

Philidor's analysis of the position where he asserts that White may win begins from his diagram and offers Black moving first, 1...Ra1.

White to move

We see the essential elements here are the same as in Dvoretsky's position with White to move.

2.Kf6 Rf1+ 3.Ke6 Kf8 4.Rh8+ Kg7 5.Re8

Philidor states that this move is the only one that "can insure the game" (279). Checking the position with tablebases confirms that Philidor was in error, as noted by Dvoretsky.

5...Re1 6.Kd7

Black to move

6...Kf7

This move is the key error. Philidor offers an alternative in the notes: 6...Rd1+ 7.Ke7, but he misses the key defensive idea that was discovered by later analysis, 7...Ra1!

7.e6+ Kg7 8.Ke7

Here, White missed the winning 8.Ra8 (also Rb8, Rd8, and Rc8).

8...Re2+-

8...Ra1 draws, again.

The rest of Philidor's analysis is a good illustration of a winning technique that works in some Lucena positions, but differing from the orthodox bridge building on the fourth rank.



*Other books offer slightly different positions. Silman's Complete Endgame Course (2007) has 6R1/4k2r/8/3KP3/8/8/8/8 (126). Fundamental Chess Endings (2001) by Karsten Muller and Frank Lamprecht has 1r3k2/R7/8/5PK1/8/8/8/8 (177). Grigory Levenfish and Vasily Smyslov, Rook Endings, trans. by Philip J. Booth (1971) has a partial mirror image of the position in Philidor's text: the White king is flipped to the other side of the pawn and the rooks have swapped rook files. It is 4k3/R7/7r/3K4/4P3/8/8/8 (15). Reuben Fine, Basic Chess Endings (1941) is almost identical to Philidor's with only the Black rook one square to the right (287).

**Back-game was the term employed for variations in seventeenth and eighteenth century chess texts.

Rubinstein's Rook Endings

In Akiba Rubinstein: Uncrowned King (1994), John Donaldson and Nikolay Minev write, "it was in the ending, particularly Rook endings, that Rubinstein's genius was made manifest" (i). As a guide to beginning study of Rubinstein's endings, the authors provide a list of seven games featuring rook endings (v). The first two on this list are from the St. Petersburg tournament of 1909 in which Rubinstein and World Champion Emanuel Lasker shared first place. Rubinstein defeated Lasker in their individual encounter.

Rubinstein won a pawn in the opening, and then reached an endgame where Lasker's rook and king were forced into passive positions. Although I can see Rubinstein's clear advantage at the game's end, I am puzzled a bit concerning the moment Lasker chose to resign. As it followed Rubinstein's move 40, reaching the time control could have been a factor. However, according to Donaldson and Minev, the time control was reached at move 37 (144).

Rubinstein,Akiba -- Lasker,Emanuel [D32]
St Petersburg 1909

1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 e6 4.Bg5 c5 5.cxd5 exd5 6.Nc3 cxd4 7.Nxd4 Nc6 8.e3 Be7 9.Bb5 Bd7 10.Bxf6 Bxf6 11.Nxd5 Bxd4 12.exd4 Qg5 13.Bxc6 Bxc6 14.Ne3 0–0–0 15.0–0 Rhe8 16.Rc1 Rxe3 17.Rxc6+ bxc6 18.Qc1 Rxd4 19.fxe3 Rd7 20.Qxc6+ Kd8 21.Rf4 f5

White to move

After White's move 21, Lasker commented: "A splendid conception. ...Black's only alternative is to exchange Queens and lose the end game" (The International Chess Congress, St. Petersburg, 1909 [1910], 28). In the book of the tournament, Lasker does not analyze the ending after the exchange of queens. Donaldson and Minev present Lasker's comments alongside those from two books by Hans Kmoch, an earlier biography of Rubinstein by Yury Razuvaev and V.I. Murakhveri, and some unnamed text by Reuben Fine.* Fine, Basic Chess Endings (1941) discusses this game, and some of the analysis resembles that attributed to Fine in Akiba Rubinstein: Uncrowned King. But, I am unable to locate the precise words in Fine's text. The words attributed to Lasker by Donaldson and Minev deviate slightly from the tournament book, and the authors correct a notation error in the original. I suspect the abundant comments attributed to others in Akiba Rubinstein: Uncrowned King should be considered paraphrases, rather than quotations. In the game analysis portions, these statements are presented without quotation marks.

22.Qc5 Qe7 23.Qxe7+ Kxe7 24.Rxf5 Rd1+ 25.Kf2 Rd2+ 26.Kf3 Rxb2 27.Ra5 Rb7

White to move

Fine's analysis in Basic Chess Endings begins from this position (364-365).

28.Ra6

Fine notes that 28.e4 "is also good, but to have the Black King confined is helpful" (364).

28...Kf8 29.e4 Rc7 30.h4 Kf7 31.g4 Kf8 32.Kf4 Ke7 33.h5 h6

"Why, one naturally asks, does Lasker create a hole at g6  with his Pawn move? The answer is that he cannot afford to let the White Pawn get to g6" (Fine, 364).

34.Kf5 Kf7 35.e5 Rb7 36.Rd6 Ke7 37.Ra6 Kf7 38.Rd6 Kf8 39.Rc6 Kf7

White to move

40.a3 1–0

Why resign now? The answer was not immediately obvious to me. Akiba Rubinstein: Uncrowned King gives the move an ! and offers analysis attributed to Kmoch:

Zugzwang! 40...Re7 (or 40...Ke8 41.Kg6 and wins, since the only useful answer 41...Rb4 is prevented) 41.e6+ Kg8 42.Kg6 Re8 43.e7, followed by Rd6 and Rd8. (148)

Fine gives the move !!! and presents Kmoch's main line, as well as:

40...Kf8 41.Kg6 Rb3 42.Rc8+ Ke7 43.Rc7+ Ke6 44.Rxg7 Rxa3 45.Kxh6 and the two connected Pawns are irresistible. (365)

After studying the analysis in these two books, Lasker's resignation makes more sense to me.


*Donaldson and Minev state that space limitations prohibit a full listing of sources, but they list certain "most helpful" (315) works, including:
Kmoch, Hans. Rubinstein Gewinnt! (1933).
_____. Rubinstein's Chess Masterpieces (1941).
Razuvaev, Yury, and V.I. Murakhveri. Akiba Rubinstein (1980).

They also list Lasker's tournament book.