Endgames from Mayrhofen

by Karsten Müller
10/13/2022 – The European Club Cup was played last week, with no fewer than 70 teams in the open section and 17 women’s squads making their way to Mayrhofen, Austria. Our in-house expert Karsten Müller once again compiled a series of instructive endgames for us to learn from and enjoy! | Pictured: Anna Muzychuk (photo by Fiona Steil-Antoni)

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The value of technique


Philidor’s win

Superbet’s Marsel Efroimski took home an individual gold medal after showing a truly strong performance on the fourth board. In the first round, she proved that rook and bishop against rook is very difficult to defend even when the defender has a pawn left on the board.

 

The wrong check — on move 140!

In the fifth round, Adi Federovski, who played on board 2 for Rishon Lezion, was defending fiercely against Gambit Asseco See’s Ljilja Drljevic. Only on move 140, in an ending with queen and knight versus queen and bishop, did Federovski falter. 

 

Extreme precision needed

Pure opposite-coloured bishop endings have a very large drawish tendency, and fortresses are the main defensive recourse. But even in these cases, precision in finding the correct king path is needed. As seen in the game between Anna Muzychuk and Alina Kashlinskaya. 

 

One might think it does not make much of a difference, but playing 36.Kg2 or 36.Kf1 can decide the fate of the game. Muzychuk chose the latter, and went on to draw the game, while placing her king on g2 would have given her a full point.

Find this game’s full analysis plus three more instructive endgames in the replayer below.

 

Magical Chess Endgames Vol. 1 & 2 + The magic of chess tactics

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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