The topic of today's article is checkmating ideas in endgames. The inspiration for the article was a recent game played in the Biel tournament, Nakamura vs. Bologan. This article features that game at the very end, first introducing relevant examp...
Last week we looked at a B+N vs. 2Ns endgame where there are fixed and isolated d-pawns present on the board. The endgame was played between the World Open winner Sokolov and American GM Lenderman. For the last 20 moves Sokolov has been pressing w...
Recently GM Ivan Sokolov conquered the American chess scene by winning the largest open in the US - the World Open, technically, tying for 1st place with American GM Shabalov but winning on tie-break. Sokolov showed no mercy playing two young and ...
Today we will wrap up our series on endgames from the US Championship. Here is a selection of examples where your task is to find the best plan. The topics vary but include converting an advantage, defense, creating and attacking a second weakness...
This is a rather intriguing game. First of all, both players appear to miss a three-fold repetition in the middlegame (or they both choose to ignore it). The ending is quite crazy. Both players rush to queen their pawns, and at one point, there ar...
[previous article] Today's article is dedicated to the endgame Ramirez - Robson from the US Championship. This is the battle between two players who won the prestigious Samford Fellowship - Robson at the age of 14 in 2009 and Ramirez this year. T...
Today we will continue with the article series on endgames from the US Championship. The topic of today's article is the endgame from Shulman - Robson. Usually, I prefer to look at more than one endgame at a time but this endgame proved so full wi...
Today we will continue our look at interesting endgames from the recently-concluded U.S. Championship. I especially like the next example because it is almost like an endgame study. Onischuk is famous for his exchange sacrifices resulting in fa...
Last week we saw some endgames from the U.S. Women's Championship; today we will overview endgames from the US Championship. This is Part 1 of the article and Part 2 will follow the next week. I will try to concentrate on specific moments of endga...
Today we will look at endgames from the US Women's Championships. The positions that I chose are from the genre of endgame tragicomedies. Either one or both sides misplayed the endgames presented here. There were big and huge blunders, blunders in...
My vacation from chess.com is over and I cannot wait to share with you the endgame experience that I acquired during the recent US and US Women's Championships. I participated in the Women's Championship and finished tied 5-7 with a 50% score, wha...
This is a follow-up to my previous article on defending 4 v 3. The rook endgame three versus two on the same flank is the little brother of the one which we have already studied. The difference favours the defender as there is one pawn less that i...
(Four versus Three on the Same Flank: Part 2-Defense) In the previous article we saw the dangers that the defender faces in these seemingly easy endgames. If you remember, the main one was that the strong side might create a passed pawn ...
(Four versus Three on the Same Flank: Part 1-Attack) As the rooks are the most clumsy chess pieces and as they tend to get in the game very late, one of the most common endgames that arises on the board is the rook endgame. Therefore, st...
Today's article is a set of positions that illustrate the technique of converting material and positional advantages. The protagonist of all the examples is GM Kramnik, who is particularly prominent in the field of converting advantages. We will u...
Here is a very unique game. The final position features five queens on the board, which is most likely a record. The opening features Mackic attacking his opponent, Maksimenko's kingside relentlessly, but to no avail. Maksimenko fights off the att...
Today we will look at endgames where one side had a queen for either a minor piece, a rook or both. Having an extra queen does not automatically guarantee an easy win. As you will see today there are many possible ways of losing or drawing while h...
I wanted to dedicate this article to winning endgames while being several pawns up but it happened that most of the endgame positions that I looked at resulted in transpositions to the endgames we looked at last week when one side is down a piece....
Last week we explored strategies for winning with an extra rook. Today we will explore the situation when one side has an extra knight or bishop for a pawn, two pawns or for no compensation. There is a famous joke my coach likes to use that can be...
Today's article is for players rated 800-1000, and we will look at rook endgames where one side has an extra rook. There are several rules that one has to follow in realizing this extra rook into a win. I will go over the most important ones here....
Today we will look at a complex middlegame position that resolved into an even more complex endgame. There was a stage of tactical fireworks that led to a theoretical endgame. White was pressing for most of the game but I managed to get a better h...
Last week we analyzed bishop endgames where a king played a major role. We studied a pattern where the bishop sacrifice cleared the way for the king. Today we will continue with the topic of king activity in bishop endgames but will look at differ...
We continue our series on bishop endgames and today's topic is king activity in bishop endings. Getting the king into the center should be an aim in most endgame positions. Usually, in bishop endgames the defending side can block the opposing king...
The topic of today's article is the "bad bishop" in the endgame. A bad bishop is usually a piece that is restricted by its own pawns, though it is also sometimes simply a piece that does not have much work to do. In contrast the opponent's bishop ...
