Rooks belong behind passed pawns

by Karsten Müller
7/7/2015 – 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!
YOUR PERSONAL CHESS COACH - Whether you’re taking your first steps into the world of club chess, or already playing at a tournament level: with FRITZ, you can train more efficiently, intelligently and with a more personalised approach than ever before.
FRITZ is more than just a chess engine – it’s a training revolution! Whether you’re taking your first steps into the world of club chess, or already playing at a tournament level: with FRITZ, you can train more efficiently, intelligently and with a more personalised approach than ever before.

Rooks belong behind passed pawns
 


 

Black to play. How do you evaluate the continuation 79...Ke1 80.Rf7 f1Q+ 81.Rxf1+ Kxf1? Is this rook against pawn position a win for Black or just a draw? If you evaluate this as a draw, does Black have a good alternative instead of the direct 79.Ke1?

 

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.

 

ChessBase Magazine #166 (June/July) 

Review by Albert Silver

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.

Discuss

Rules for reader comments

 
 

Not registered yet? Register

Aighearach Aighearach 7/8/2015 02:48
Regardless of if the corrections others have provided are valid or not, just assuming the lesson is correct, I don't feel that the lesson and the line really work well. The line is too full of subtleties. It seems a lot more about the trickiness of move order and king position in pawn endgames than about having the rook behind the pawn.
Matt79 Matt79 7/8/2015 01:31
But 78 Kd3 is losing! Black wins after 78 Rf8.
arna arna 7/8/2015 01:10
According to endgame tablebases, 86.Re5+ is the best and 86.Rc5 is losing too.
Dorado Dorado 7/7/2015 10:12
86.Re5+ in the line given as winning is a blunder.
Instead 86.Rc5 draws according to my Houdini4 and I have had it playing a shootout against it self from this position.
1