Jon Speelman: Major and minor

by Jonathan Speelman
12/3/2023 – Endings with a rook and a minor piece each are especially difficult. There is still enough firepower on the board for plenty of tactics, up to and often including mating attacks. But in contrast to middlegames, where unless matters are very forcing you have to rely to a great extent on intuition, in principle you “ought” — with material limited — to be able to calculate fairly accurately! | Photo: John Saunders (2007)

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A rook and a minor piece

[Note that Jon Speelman also looks at the content of the article in video format, here embedded at the end of the article.]

A week and a bit ago, I played a London League game against the strong FIDE Master Andrew Lewis. We’d played a couple of times previously with honours even, and this time I got the advantage after the opening but rather messed it up before reaching an ending with rook and bishop vs rook and knight and an extra pawn. Eventually, we reached the diagram where I missed a very nice win and was lucky still to win anyway after we had a double hallucination which could have left me scrabbling to draw!

Endings with a rook and a minor piece each are especially difficult. There is still enough firepower on the board for plenty of tactics, up to and often including mating attacks. But in contrast to middlegames, where unless matters are very forcing you have to rely to a great extent on intuition, in principle you “ought” — with material limited — to be able to calculate fairly accurately.

I had a look through my database of my own games, which contains over 2650 of them (though sadly I lost some of my early scorebooks at some stage). And when I put a rook and one minor piece each into the search mask, more than 400 came up in which this material balance had arisen, at least transitorily.

I remembered a game against Mark Hebden years ago at a British Championship in Brighton — apparently it was in 1980 — in which with an attack against my king, Mark carried on trying to win with R+N v R+B and two pawns! Eventually, by dint of great effort, I managed to repel him and win, and in my fond memory I had played really well to do so. Of course, when I exposed my efforts to our lords and silicon masters, they were less impressed...

I’ve added a well-known drawing mechanism with R+N, one ending I’ve definitely used here before a while ago, and one which I thought I might have used but apparently not?

Andrew Lewis vs. Jon Speelman

Here I played 34...Bf8?. Can you see why this was a mistake, allowing a nice resource (pretty difficult) and the superb tactical sequence which engines point out to give Black a clearly winning position?

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34...Bf8? 34...Bd6! 35.f3 If 35.Ra8+ Kg7 Black has effectively gianed a tempo to improve his king: 36.f3 Rf4 37.Ke2 37.Ng4 Be7 37...Be7 Or if 35.Nf3 the knight is miles away from f6, and with no counterplay White must be lost in the long run. 35...Re1+! I had seen that this was legal but not that it helped here. 36.Kf2 Re7! Only after its Majesty played Re7 did I realise the point. 37.Ng4 Ra7! 38.Nf6+ Kf8 39.Rd5 Be7 39...a3 40.Ne4 40.Rb5 Bxf6 41.gxf6 Ke8 42.Re5+ Kd8 43.Rd5+ Kc8 44.Rc5+ Kb8 45.Rb5+ Kc7 40...a3 41.Rd1 a2 42.Ra1 and Black will win easily. 35.f3 Rf4 36.Ke2 a3 37.Ng4 Rf5 38.Nf6+ Kg7 39.Nh5+! I'd completely missed this but after a couple of minutes' thought imagined that I'd found a win anyway. gxh5?! 39...Kg8 40.Nf6+ Kg7 41.Nh5+ Kg8 42.Nf6+ Kh8 43.Ra8 Rxg5 44.Rxf8+ Kg7 45.Ra8 39...Kh8 40.Ra8 Kg8 40...gxh5 41.Rxf8+ Kg7 42.Ra8 Rxg5 43.Rxa3 h4 44.Ra4 Rh5 45.Kf2 h3 46.Kg1 40.Rxf5 Bb4 41.g6? 41.Rf6! We both missed this! Be7 41...Bc3 42.Ra6 Bb2 43.f4 f6 42.Ra6 Bxg5 43.Rxa3 Bf4 44.Ra4 Bg3 45.f4 45.Ke3 45...h4 46.Kf3 f5!= holds 41...Kxg6 42.Rb5 Bc3 43.Rb6+ Kf5 44.Ra6 Bb2 45.Kd3 45.Ke3 Opposing the white king must give better chances but he was in terrible time trouble living on just a 5-second increment. 45...Kf4 46.Kc2 and here he lost on time, but it is finally clearly lost by now.
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
Lewis,A-Speelman,J-0–12023A50London League2
Hebden,M2290Speelman,J24900–11980B07BCF-ch10
Raicevic,V2440Speelman,J2470½–½1979E05Hastings 79807
Speelman,J2645Sax,G26001–01988A31Thessaloniki (ol)
Yelisieiev,Y-Speelman,J-0–12019A002nd BL4

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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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Jonathan Speelman, born in 1956, studied mathematics but became a professional chess player in 1977. He was a member of the English Olympic team from 1980–2006 and three times British Champion. He played twice in Candidates Tournaments, reaching the semi-final in 1989. He twice seconded a World Championship challenger: Nigel Short and then Viswanathan Anand against Garry Kasparov in London 1993 and New York 1995.

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