Endgames from Chennai (1)

by Karsten Müller
7/30/2022 – Over 650 games are being played daily at the record-breaking Chess Olympiad in Chennai. GM Karsten Müller is attentively following the games, looking for instructive endings. Naturally, all sorts of setups and typical patterns show up with so many encounters running concurrently. Go over our in-house expert’s analyses, and you are sure to find something to learn or, at the very least, something to enjoy! | Pictured: Ariadna de la Riva (Andorra) | Photo: Lennart Ootes
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Tactics matter

What is the value of having a good bishop when the position is completely locked up? Sam Shankland (United States) and Domingos Junior (Angola) were each left with a light-squared bishops and six pawns in an endgame — but, importantly, Junior’s pawns were the ones standing on the same colour as the minor piece.

Can you figure out why the Angolan resigned in this position?

 

Zugzwang! After 53...Bb7, White has 54.Bh5 winning. Black’s king and bishop are not in time to stop the passer Shankland is about to create on the kingside.

In the game between Abubaker Tagelsir (Sudan) and Matthias Bluebaum (Germany), White counted with a tactical resource to recover the knight he had just given up in the following position. But Bluebaum had seen one move further.

 

46.Ra1 seems to equalize the position by force, but after 46...Bc6 White has nothing better than to resign the game — 47.Rxa7 fails to 47...Rc1+, and White needs to give up the bishop to prevent mate.

Find out how Shankland and Bluebaum reached the aforementioned winning position and one more instructive endgames in the replayer below.

 

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.

Links

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.