by scribe | Dec 22, 2022 | endings, games, literature, positions
Today I’m going to finish my series of posts on one of the classic rook-and-pawn endgames: the endgame with balanced pawns on the kingside, and with one player enjoying an outside passed pawn on the queenside. The prototypical position is number 367 in Reuben...
by scribe | Dec 3, 2022 | endings, literature, positions
I hope you’re ready for some very, very challenging endgame analysis! Today we’ll have what I think is the most difficult and interesting of my four posts on what I call the “Fine endgame”: rook plus 4 pawns versus rook plus 3 pawns, with the...
by scribe | Sep 18, 2022 | games, openings, positions, tournaments
For the last month, since I got back from my disastrous tournament in Minneapolis, I haven’t shown any games from it because I thought they would be too embarrassing. But in order to learn from a failure, you have to face it and ask what happened and why. So now...
by scribe | Aug 4, 2022 | endings, positions, tournaments
Generally speaking, when you are in a bad or losing position, you should not count on finding a single miraculous move — a hail Mary — to save your position. Hard-nosed, patient defense will save more games than prayers will. But on the other hand, you...
by scribe | Apr 7, 2022 | endings, positions
Last year, after bingeing too many times on chess games played against the computer, I said, “No more.” I actually stuck to that resolution for about seven months, but then I updated the operating system on my Apple computer. The chess program I had on...
by scribe | Mar 12, 2022 | games, positions
First, let me say that the title of this post is not literally true. However, it’s something that I like to tell my students, and it’s not as far-fetched as it seems. It’s intended to correct a very harmful mindset that starts affecting players as...
