Chess Teacher on August 17th, 2008

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 [...]

Continue reading about Trébuchet

Chess Teacher on July 14th, 2008

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 [...]

Continue reading about Rook and pawn versus rook endgame

Chess Teacher on June 28th, 2008

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.

Continue reading about Rook pawn rook draws

Chess Teacher on June 22nd, 2008

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.

Continue reading about Rook pawn rook endgame

Chess Teacher on February 9th, 2008

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 [...]

Continue reading about Creating a passed pawn