Clutch Chess Champions Showdown 2020: Endgame Highlights
This new online format seems to lead to a lot of fascinating endgames. There were so many exciting and instructive endgames in the Clutch Chess Champions Showdown that I was spoilt for choice. I selected some gems and sorted them by material.
A) Rook endings
A1) The Vancura Defense
"Vancura Defense" is the name of the most important maneuver to draw against an a- or h-pawn.
White to play and draw!
A2) Activity is important
The defender should try to keep king and rook active.
Black to play and draw!
White to play and draw!
A3) Be careful when liquidating into a pawn endgame
White to play and draw!
B) Rook against pawns
In these endings the side with the rook usually tries to win – unless the pawns are far advanced.
White to play and draw!
In the following example White wins because his g-pawns queens with check.
Black is to move but he is still lost.
C) Queen endings
In queen endings it is often important to find a safe place for the king of the attacker:
Black to play and draw!
D) Knight against bishop
Sometimes bad bishops are not as bad as it seems on first sight. But in the following example Black manages to break through.
Black to play and win!
White to play and draw!
E) Endgames with bishops of opposite colour
Endgames with bishops of opposite colour are extremely drawish and positional factors are oft more important than material considerations.
White to play and draw!
F) Rook against knight
Knights are sometimes called "octopus" because a knight can control a maximum of eight squares and an octopus has eight arms.
Black to play and draw!
If you like such endgames and if you want to improve your endgame skills you should take a look at the ChessBase Magazine which in each issue contains similar endgames.
FIDE Candidates 2020 with analyses by Giri, Gelfand etc. Firouzja, Vidit, Vitiugov, Duda and Navara comment on their games from Prague. 11 articles with new repertoire ideas. Videos by Werle, King and Marin. Training in tactics, strategy and endgame!
You might also like Karsten Müller's instructive and entertaining endgame DVDs.
Rules of thumb are the key to everything when you are having to set the correct course in a complex endgame. In this final DVD of his series on the endgame, our endgame specialist introduces you to the most important of these rules of thumb.
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