9/16/2020 – Karsten Müller is the Sherlock Holmes of unsolved endgame riddles, and he passionately searches for the truth in complicated endgame positions. This time, he wants to know whether the famous endgame Benko vs Kortschnoi, Curacao 1962, was indeed won for White. And he needs your help to find the solution. | Photos: Dutch National Archive

9/15/2020 – Rook endings have drawish tendencies, and sometimes being one or even two pawns up is not enough to win. But despite their drawish tendencies rook endings can be very sharp and full of hidden tactics. Especially, if both sides have far advanced passed pawns.

9/10/2020 – The recent online tournaments led to a huge number of interesting endgames, and it is amazing how often the top players find the right moves in these endgames though they sometimes have only seconds left on the clock. Karsten Müller took a look at the endgame highlights from the Chessable Masters. Thorsten Cmiel helped him.

9/8/2020 – Endings with opposite coloured bishops are often drawish but can also be very exciting because material is less important. This again and again leads to surprising and aesthetically pleasing sacrifices.

9/1/2020 – Usually passed pawns should be pushed, but there is no rule without exception! What is Black’s best move in the diagram? Endgame specialist Karsten Müller demonstrates why one should always calculate carefully not to spoil a winning position in the final stages of the game.

8/31/2020 – One of the most mysterious passages of chess history was the 1910 World Championship match. Both the controversy of whether the world title was at stake in the ten-game confrontation and which were the conditions of said match are still unresolved. The riddle that Karsten Müller presented to our readers, however, had to do with game 5. The conclusion: Lasker was winning! | Pictured: Emanuel Lasker | Photo: Cleveland Public Library

8/27/2020 – The World Championship match from 1910 still contains several mysteries. One is the famous fifth game. Schlechter won in the end and thanks to that almost won the match, but that is another mysterious story. Can you help Karsten Müller to find the truth of the famous queen and rook fight? | Photo: Das interessante Blatt, 20 January 1910, page 6. | Retrieved from Edward Winter’s Chess Notes

8/25/2020 – A bishop is often much stronger than a knight when passed pawns are trying to promote on two different flanks of the board. Endgame specialist Karsten Müller demonstrates the winning technique to convert this position into a win, and shows how reacting wrongly to a ‘spite check’ can completely change the evaluation in a single move.

8/21/2020 – A while ago Karsten Müller asked ChessBase readers whether the adjourned position of the crucial sixth game of the Fischer-Petrosian Candidates match of 1971 in Buenos Aires was indeed a draw. Fischer won the game and the match, and one year later became World Champion, but our readers came to the conclusion that Petrosian could have drawn. However, in a crucial line Fat Fritz saw deeper.

8/18/2020 – The "bodycheck" is the most important pattern in the endgame rook against pawn. The term, of course, is borrowed from the game of hockey and it describes the situation when one king takes away an important square from the other king.

8/11/2020 – Due to the colour blindness of the bishop there are often fortresses in pure endgames. In the following case White can either reach the saving corner h1 or Ponziani's old fortress.

8/5/2020 – Bobby Fischer was the star of the show at the 1970 Interzonal Tournament in Palma de Mallorca, before starting an amazing run that led him to challenge Boris Spassky for the World Championship title in Reykjavík 1972. But was he always winning in the endgame he played against Vlastimil Hort? Or could have Hort defended? We asked our readers to help settle the historical debate. And they helped endgame expert GM Karsten Müller to settle the question! | Drawing of V. Hort: Otakar Masek

8/4/2020 – Far advanced connected passed pawns are often very dangerous in the endgame.

7/29/2020 – Bobby Fischer obtained an astounding 18½ out of 23 score to win the 1970 Interzonal Tournament in Palma de Mallorca. In round 5, the American genius defeated Vlastimil Hort with black in an opposite-coloured bishops endgame, but it is not clear whether the ending was always winning or not! Endgame specialist Karsten Müller asks for your help.

7/28/2020 – Coming from taking first place at the Soviet Chess Championship, Mikhail Botvinnik faced Salomon Flohr in a 12-game match played in Moscow and Leningrad. In one of the games, Flohr showed the chess world how to force a win in the 2B vs 2N endgame. But did he really, or did Botvinnik simply misplay it? We asked our readers to help settle the historical debate. And they helped endgame expert GM Karsten Müller to settle the question. | Pictured: Flohr and Botvinnik in 1935

7/28/2020 – Pawn endgames always must be calculated carefully. | Endgame theory constitutes the foundation of chess. You realize this in striking clarity once you obtain a won endgame but in the end have to be content with a draw in the end because of a lack of necessary know-how. Such accidents can only be prevented by building up a solid endgame technique.

7/23/2020 – At the Candidates Tournament 1962 in Curacao, Mikhail Tal (pictured) lost a tricky rook endgame against the eventual tournament winner and World Champion to be Tigran Petrosian. But did Tal lose only after one or more mistakes? Endgame specialist Karsten Müller asked for the readers’ help and came to a conclusion: Tal could have held the draw!

7/21/2020 – This is a crucial question in chess. After all, once pieces have been exchanged they can never return. There are times when you need to keep them on the board, and others when you need to part with them at once. Yet another instructive lesson by endgame specialist Karsten Muller.