White’s bishop is a bad bishop. It has the wrong color and will not be able to drive away Black’s king from the promotion square of the rook pawn. Knowing this Black only has to capture the b-pawn to get the draw.

Bad_Bishop

It’s White’s turn to move, but Black will gain a tempo because of the check by f4+. So at first sight it may look like a draw, but as we will see White will be able to win this game.

Pawn_run

Bishops_Endgame

More chess lessons? An index of all chess lessons can be found here.

The following tow diagrams show two examples. In the diagram on the left promotion of the pawn to a queen will result in a stalemate, but White can win the game by promoting to a rook (or by playing Kd6). In the diagram on the right promotion to a queen or a rook will result in a draw (stalemate), but promoting to a bishop will result in an easy win. In this case White may also win by playing Ke7.

Another interesting example is shown in the next diagram. Now White is forced to promote. He has to capture the rook. Promoting to a queen or a rook will result in stalemate, so the pawn has to be promoted to a bishop or a knight.

I should go for the bishop, but promotion to a knight will be ok. 49. bxc8=B will probably be followed by something like 49… Kb8 50. Bh3 Kc7 51. Kb5 Kd6 52. a7 Ke5 53. a8=Q Kf6 54. Qf8+ Kg5 55. Be6 Kg6 56. Qe7 Kh6 57. Qf6+ Kh5 58. Qg7 Kh4 59. Qg4#

 
A rather complicated example can be found in the next diagram taken from the game Sokolsky – Ravinsky. This example has been discussed by Tim Krabbé in his article about Practical Underpromotion.

In this article he describes 47 examples of underpromotion in actual games. In the diagram on the left 66.a8=B is winning and it is White’s only winning move. The alternative moves are discussed in Tim Krabbé’s article.

 
Another interesting position that can be found in a number of actual games is the position given in the following diagram.

49.Rc8+ Rxc8 50.b7+ Ka7 will result in a position that should be familiar by now.

In this case 49.a7 is also winning
49…Kb7 50.Rc7+ Ka8 51.Ka6 1-0

 

The Lasker Trap is the next lesson in this series of chess lessons.

Fischer_Taimanov

The next lesson in this series is about Zugzwang.

This word Zugzwang originates from the German and means something like “forced to move”. It is your move and in chess you have to move since you are not allowed to skip a move in chess.
Zugzwang isn’t something that happens to you. The concept can also be used by making a move which puts your opponent in zugzwang.
Getting the opposition is in fact a way to get your opponent in zugzwang. Another famous technique is triangulation in which you reach the same position, but with your opponent to move.

In some positions whoever is to move is in zugzwang. This kind of postions are referred to as mutual zugzwang or reciprocal zugzwang and are often very interesting postions to study, because these are a kind of balanced positions.

A famous example of this reciprocal zugzwang, called trébuchet, is shown in the figure above.
The player that has to move loses the game. The pawn has to be abandoned. The other player will capture this pawn and is also able to occupy a key square.
If you like to view the replayable moves belonging to this diagram you can find these at the end of this article.

In all four diagrams below Black is able to win the game, because he is able to force his opponent in this famous Zugzwang.

Let’s have a look at the last diagram and replay some of the moves.

Trebuchet

It describes the following winning methods:

• Pawn on the sixth or seventh rank
• The king without the pawn cut off along a rank is an easy win
• The king without the pawn is cut off from the pawn’s file is a far more complicated endgame (like we have described in the two previous lessons) and it gives the rule of five.

The rule of five is for positions in which the pawn is protected and the opposing king is cut off by files: Add the number of rank of the pawn to the number of files the defender’s king is cut off. If the sum is more than five, it is usually a win. Otherwise it is normally a draw.

The article also refers to the Lucena position and describes an alternate method to win for bishop pawns and central pawns.

The next lesson will show another famous game: Fischer – Taimanov 1971.

The next lesson continues with this Rook and pawn versus Rook endgame. It will contain a useful link and learn you the rule of five.

This lesson will explain a part of this KRP-KR endgame.
As indicated above the starting postion of the diagram below is a winning postion for White even if it is Black’s turn to move. Note that Black’s king is unable to approach the white pawn.

Endgame

• attacking the square in front of the pawn
• or placing a piece in front of the pawn

The player with the passed pawn will try to use all the tactical weapons to eliminate the piece that prevents the pawn to queen.
But this will be something of a future lesson. Now we are going to create a passed pawn.

The diagrams below illustrate a rather famous example about the creation of a passed pawn.

At first sight the position looks about even, but White’s pawns are allready on the fifth rank.

1.g6

White is going to sacrifice a pawn.

1…hxg6 Black has to capture the pawn. 1…fxg6 is an alternative.

2.f6 and White is going to sacrifice the second pawn

2…gxf6 Black has nothing to chose

3.h6 and now White has created a passed pawn. This will be sufficient to win the game.
 

The next lesson will learn you the Kieninger trap.