Instructive endgames from the Armageddon Series

by Karsten Müller
10/1/2023 – The Grand Finale of the Armageddon Series took place on September 14-20 at the World Chess Club in Berlin, with Jan-Krzysztof Duda eventually emerging as the winner. GM Karsten Müller found instructive endgame positions to share with us. Replay his analyses and you are sure to learn and enjoy! | Photos: World Chess
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Beware of reciprocal zugzwang

The need to win with white in an Armageddon game was perhaps the reason why Dommaraju Gukesh faltered in a pawn endgame against Richard Rapport. But learning to watch out for reciprocal zugzwang is nevertheless useful for any club player!

Richard Rapport

Richard Rapport

The breakthrough

Trading down into a pawn endgame should always be considered carefully, especially when both sides can quickly create passers. Sam Shankland showed proper technique to win the following pawn race against Wesley So.

Sam Shankland

Sam Shankland

King activity

Keeping the opponent’s king away from the action is often necessary to defend a slightly inferior endgame. Nodirbek Abdusattorov made the most of Humpy Koneru’s imprecision to score a win in a tricky rook endgame.

Nodirbek Abdusattorov

Nodirbek Abdusattorov

The rook belongs behind the passed pawn

Rook endgames require extreme precision, and often the defending side can save a draw despite being a pawn down — as shown in the following example.

Dommaraju Gukesh

Dommaraju Gukesh

In over 4 hours in front of the camera, Karsten Müller presents to you sensations from the world of endgames - partly reaching far beyond standard techniques and rules of thumb - and rounds off with some cases of with own examples.

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Karsten Müller is considered to be one of the greatest endgame experts in the world. His books on the endgame - among them "Fundamentals of Chess Endings", co-authored with Frank Lamprecht, that helped to improve Magnus Carlsen's endgame knowledge - and his endgame columns for the ChessCafe website and the ChessBase Magazine helped to establish and to confirm this reputation. Karsten's Fritztrainer DVDs on the endgame are bestsellers. The mathematician with a PhD lives in Hamburg, and for more than 25 years he has been scoring points for the Hamburger Schachklub (HSK) in the Bundesliga.

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