Most of the time it is an advantage that it is your turn to move, but sometimes it is a very serious disadvantage. In chess this is known as 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 [...]
A lot of information about the Rook and pawn versus rook endgame can be found in Wikipedia. This article gives a nice overview of the most important positions and methods to win or to hold the position.
It describes the following winning methods:
Pawn on the sixth or seventh rank
The king without the pawn cut off along [...]
In this lesson I only show eight diagrams of the rook and pawn versus rook endgame, but this time all the positions correspond to a draw if played properly. Are you able to hold these postions as Black.
The rook and pawn versus rook endgames are very important to study because these are the simplest versions of the very frequent occurring rook endgames.
Let’s have a look at the diagrams below. All these positions are a win for White, but do you know why?
This lesson will explain a part of this KRP-KR endgame.
A passed pawn is a pawn that can not be stopped anymore by one of the opposing pawns. A passed pawn is rather valuable especially in the endgame. Passed pawns are dangerous and they have to be stopped. Assuming that the pawn can not be captured we can stop them by:
attacking the square in front [...]