Kings first

by Karsten Müller
2/16/2016 – Every week ChessBase magazine author and renowned endgame expert Karsten Müller presents a remarkable or particularly instructive endgame in his blog. A click on the diagram opens a larger board. Test your endgame skills, improve and have fun!

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Kings first
 


 

White to move. How do you evaluate the continuation 49.Rc2 and 49.Ke6?

 
 

Karsten Müller in ChessBase Magazine

Do you like these lessons? There are plenty more by internationally renowned endgame expert Dr Karsten Müller in ChessBase Magazine, where you will also find openings articles and surveys, tactics, and of course annotations by the world's top grandmasters.

Click to go to the ChessBase Magazine page

Apart from his regular columns and video lectures in ChessBase Magazine there is a whole series of training DVDs by Karsten Müller, which are bestsellers in the ChessBase Shop.

 

New! ChessBase Magazine #170 (Feb/March)


 

The editor’s top ten

1. Heine Nielsen annotates the brilliancy of his protégé: Carlsen-Li Chao
2. Play like the world champion: together with GM Williams find the winning moves in Carlsen-Nakamura – "Move by Move“!
3. “Duel of the giants on the Berlin wall”: enjoy Karsten Müller’s video analysis of Anand-Carlsen.
4. Win with “ugly” moves: Vachier Lagrave explains how he outplayed Anand with Black.
5. Wild English Opening! Experience the spectacular Mamedyarov-Ganguly with the analyses of the Indian GM.
6. Who dares, wins! Yu Yangyi presents his fighting game (Nimzo-Indian with 5.g3) against Wesley So.
7. Sicilian with 2.Be2!?: more than a surprise weapon? Opening article by IM Souleidis.
8. This is how to play against the Cambridge-Springs Variation: Tomashevsky annotates his game against Ipatov and allows you some insights into tomorrow’s theory.
9. Mate in 6! Solve Oliver Reeh’s favourite combination with a copy-book attack on the king in interactive video format.
10. Intuitive and uncompromising: Daniel King shows Mamedyarov's straightforward attack against Lenderman (video).

Introductory video by Karsten Müller

 

 

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Topics: ChessBase Magazine, Endgame, Karsten Mueller, rook vs pawns
Karsten Müller, born 1970, has a world-wide reputation as one of the greatest endgame experts. He has, together with Frank Lamprecht, written a book on the subject: “Fundamental Chess Endgames” in addition to other contributions such as his column on the website ChessCafe as well as in ChessBase Magazine. Müller's ChessBase-DVDs about endgames in Fritztrainer-Format are bestsellers. The PhD in mathematics lives in Hamburg, where he has also been hunting down points for the HSK in the Bundesliga for many years.
Discussion and Feedback Join the public discussion or submit your feedback to the editors

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9/5/2017 – Endgames with opposite coloured bishops are tricky. Sometimes they are a draw although one side is two or even three pawns up. Sometimes the bishop sacrifices itself to let his pawns queen and sometimes these endgames are a simple win. But you always have to be careful.
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Very small winning zone

8/29/2017 – If queen and king fight against king and pawn in the endgame the side with the pawn has only a chance to survive if the pawn happens to be a rook- or a bishop's pawn and is only one square away from queening. But even then things can be tricky.
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Video

Beating the French According to Viktor Kupreichik

Former World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik liked to play the French and once described it as a 'difficult and dangerous opening'. But in this 60 minutes video IM Andrew Martin suggests an aggressive and little-used idea of the renowned attacking player GM Viktor Kupreichik to counter the French: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Be3!?. Andrew Martin uses the games of Kupreichik to show why this line could catch many French aficionados unprepared and is very dangerous for Black. Attacking players will love this line and the unusual complications that it promotes.

Discuss

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X iLeon aka DMG X iLeon aka DMG 2/17/2016 07:46
Man, I couldn't for the life of me, distinguish between the two moves - looked equally good and interchangeable! Now having read Karsten's explanation it's so obvious! Thanks for another great example!
psamant psamant 2/17/2016 07:43
Nice endgame. The variation mentioned in the game analysis where Rook goes to f8, h8 and then lands on h2 to finally capture on g2 is very instructive.
qiqiangzhu qiqiangzhu 2/16/2016 08:37
good 1
1