Passed pawns can be dangerous

by Karsten Müller
11/26/2024 – Passed pawns create problems - how to stop them, how to advance them. In the diagram position it is White to move and while he dreams about advancing his own passed pawns to win, he first has to stop Black's passed pawn. What should he do?

Endgames of the World Champions from Fischer to Carlsen Endgames of the World Champions from Fischer to Carlsen

Let endgame expert Dr Karsten Müller show and explain the finesses of the world champions. Although they had different styles each and every one of them played the endgame exceptionally well, so take the opportunity to enjoy and learn from some of the best endgames in the history of chess.

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Karsten Mueller 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.

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

Karsten Mueller

Karsten Mueller regularly presents endgame lessons in the ChessBase Video Portal

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<< Opening losses and World Championship nerves
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Topics: ChessBase Magazine, Endgame, Karsten Mueller
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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See also

Be careful!

11/19/2024 – You should be extra careful before liquidating into a pawn endgame. In the diagram position it is Black to move and win. What should he do?
More...
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See also

Is activity always called for?

11/12/2024 – One rule of thumb in rook endings is to get active - with your king and with your rook. But this is just a rule of thumb. In the diagram position it is Black to move and draw. What should she do?
More...
 3

Video

60m The Two Knights

This entry into the 60 minutes series concentrates on the Modern variation of the Italian game where White opens the centre early : 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 d4 exd4 5 e5!. This line can be reached by various move orders, most frequently from the Scotch 3 d4 exd4 4 Bc4. It's a sharp variation and Grandmasters such as Evgeny Sveshnikov have used it frequently,with very good results. It's a perfect line for club players to adopt which is relatively easy to learn and which contains many traps. All the main responses are covered here, including 5...d5, 5...Ng4 and 5...Ne4 and the conclusion is that is is difficult for Black to equalize in a straightforward way. Problems are being posed, which over the board might prove tough to solve.

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Frits Fritschy Frits Fritschy 11/27/2024 12:12
Mamack1,
Is there a search tool like 'find an interesting position'? Don't think so. You can narrow down your search by, say, just look for games longer than 60 moves and/or positions with less than x pieces, but playing through them would still be an enormous amount of work!
Mamack1 Mamack1 11/26/2024 06:01
Frits Fritschy

I do believe that various search tools are available to narrow such a search down?
Karsten Müller Karsten Müller 11/26/2024 03:29
Frits Fritschy: No. Only through the endgames.
This is half joking of course. But the Olympiads always produce many fascinating endgames...
Frits Fritschy Frits Fritschy 11/26/2024 02:33
If my maths are right, about 8.000 games were played in the 2024 chess olympiad. The game in this article was played in the lower regions of the open section and the one from two weeks ago in the lower regions of the women's section. Did you really go through all of the 8.000 games to find us interesting endgame positions?
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