Endgame studies - Making walls

Hey friends,

In this endgame studies I will give algorithms / ideas on how to push the king to the corner or the board by creating walls, not giving him way to pass and thus eventually corner him and checkmate. We will discuss the ideas of mating with rook+king and bishop pair+king today.

Rook + King Checkmate

Position in which the wall is built.

OR

Pushing the King towards the back ranks, edge of the board. Once the black king is pushed then, we improve our king's position too elevating it's rank.

With black to play here, 

If black goes to 7th Rank i.e Kc7, Kb7 or Ka7 then push our rook down to 6th rank closing in the box.

If black stays on same rank, i.e Ka6 then play Kb6 and next move our rook goes down to push the king further back

With White to play here,

White can simply play a waiting move with the rook, Re5/ Rf5/ Rg5, which reduces the scope of black king to move. And the position reduces to the the earlier option, with black to play.

The final checkmate will take place when black king is on the final rank/last file on the edge of the board.

Also view a similar post on endgames for beginners here

Bishop pair + King Checkmate

The wall position with the bishop pair

The red arrows indicate the wall made by the bishops only. And the green squares show the valid squares for the king to move to.

With white to play here

Can go 1. Bd4 Reducing scope of king's flight squares

1. Bd4 Kd5 2. Ke3 Ke6 3. Be4 Strengthening the wall reducing squares for the king to run away

Final Mating position

For more such posts follow my blog The Isolated Queen pawn's blog..

Continue playing enjoy learning!!

Game of the year 2013 - Anand's Brilliancy !!

Hey friends,

This game which I am about to present today, I am sure many of you may have already seen and analyzed it. It was played last year in Tata Steel Chess 2013 - Group A, Round 4 Aronian-Anand

It was given the award as 2013's Best Game. Some also refer to it as Anand's Immortal / Anand's Brilliancy as in today's day when Chess is supposedly becoming an equal drawish game, with rise of chess engines and other computer software, the Black side crushes the enemy's defense and just gets on tactics, and more tactics and finally gets a full point within 23 moves !!

Aronian (2800+ rated) defeated in just 23 moves !! (Something you don't get to see everyday)

So here is how it went about with a Semi-Slav variation

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. e3 Nbd7 6. Bd3

With White's last move 6. Bd3, here black has a good opportunity to develop at the cost of this move. 6...dxc4 7. Bxc4 b5 Prepares for a Bb7 and this is exactly what happened in the game.

6. Bd3 dxc4 7. Bxc4 b5 8. Bd3 Bd6 9. O-O O-O

10. Qc2 Bb7 11. a3 Rc8 12. Ng5

White's last move here was 12. Ng5 threatening the h7 pawn

Black has developed with the idea to open up the position via c-file. This does 2 things

1. Opens up the way for Bishop on b7

2. Opens c-file for the Rook on c8 (Which is good as it is directly opposite the white queen) 

So Black completely ignores the threat on h7 and goes for what he had planned.

12...c5 (Leaving the pawn on b5 hanging, the pawn on h7 attacked thrice) 13. Nxh7 Ng4

White threatened to take on f8, but black again ignored the threat and went for the kill

Look at the position after just 13 moves and how black can attack in many ways.

The only move that stops this attack is f4, and white does play it, in turn weakening his d4-e3-f2 diagonal and black has the right tool to attack here.

14. f4 cxd4 exd4 15. Bc5!! 

Because if 15. dxc5 then Nxc5 followed by Qd4+ or taking the bishop on d3 if not defended for the second time.

So white here decides to try to remove a threat, the knight on g4

16. Be2 Ne5!! Leaving everything under attack. Variations shown in the entire game play below.

The Bishop on c5, Kinght on e5, Rook on f8, pawn on b5 all hanging !!

Guess what happens next ! We are just 16 moves into the game, we got a result just after 23 moves, which means, 7 strong moves only. Guess the result anybody ??

View the game below to know more variations and how the game ended.

Comments from Anand, "I think if I have my worst score with anyone it;s him (on Aronian)"

For more articles about Anand, read my earlier blogpost on this staggering win in the Candidates tournament at Khanty Mansiysk 2014, Eye of the Madras Tiger!




Some post game analysis in the post game conference...




Comments from Levon Aronian, "The Bishop on b7 was monstrous"



Comments and feedback much appreciated...

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Continue playing, enjoy learning!!

Middle game Tactics - "Removal of Defender" / "Undermining an overloaded piece" - Solutions

Hey friends,

If you haven't checked out my last post of Middle game Tactics - "Removal of Defender" / "Undermining an overloaded piece" , do check it out and just look through for some fun puzzles and relax your mind with easy tactics.

All the puzzles are White to move and win material
Here are the solutions to the puzzles shown.

Solutions: Left to Right, Up to Down

Puzzle 1:  1. Bxc4+ (forking the Knight and King)

Puzzle 2:  1. Nb6 (If 1...Rb8 2. Nxa8 Rxa8 3. Bxc6 or Rxc6)
                 (If 1... Rc7 2. Nxa8)

Puzzle 3: 1. Ne7+ (If NxN then QxQ)

                   (If Kb8 or Kd8, then Nxc6+ followed by QxQ)

Puzzle 4: 1. Bxg6+ (If 1...Qxg6 2. Rh8+ Kxh8 3. Qxg6)

                (If 1... Kh6 2. Rh8#)

Puzzle 5: 1. dxe5 (If 1...Bxe5 2. Bxf4 wins piece)

                (If 1...Qxe5 2. Nxd6 Qxd6 or cxd6 3. Bxf4)

Puzzle 6:  1. Bxe7 (If 1...Nxe7 2. Qxa5)

Puzzle 7: 1. Qg4+ Qxg4 2. Rxe8+ Kg7 3. fxg4

Puzzle 8:  1. Bxf6 Qxf6 2. Rxa3

Puzzle 9: 1. Nxe8 Rxe8 2. Qxf7

Puzzle 10: 1. Re7 (Deflection tactics) 1...Qxe7 2. Qxd5+ followed by Qxa8

Puzzle 11:  1. Rg7+ Kxg7 2. Qxe7 (wins queen by deflecting king)

Puzzle 12: 1. Rxb7 (If 1...Qxb7 Qf8#) to prolong mate, black can either go Nc7 or Rd7, and Rook captures

Puzzle 13:  1. Be4 (If 1... Qxe4 2. Nxf6+ fork !!) 1... Qe6 2. Nxf6+ Qxf6 3. Bxb7

Puzzle 14: 1. Rd8+ Kc7 2. Qxf4 Rxf4 3. Rxh8 (If 1...Rxd8 2. Qxf4)

Puzzle 15: 1. Rxc6 Qxc6 2. Qxf7+ Kh8 3. Qxf8#

Puzzle 16: 1. Rh4+ (1... Rh5 2. Rxh5+ Qxh5 3. Qxg7#) (1... Kg8 2. Ne7+ fork)

Puzzle 17: 1. Rf8 Rxf8 2. Rxh7# (If 1... Rxe5 2. Rxh8)

Puzzle 18: 1. Bxd6 exd6 2. Rxf6

Puzzle 19 (Black to play *Correction): 1... Bxd2+ 2. Qxd2 Nxf3 fork!! 

Puzzle 20: 1 Rxh7 Rxh7 2. Rxg8 (Or 1... Rxg1 2. Rxh8)

Puzzle 21: 1. Rxe7 Qxe7 2. Qxd5+

Puzzle 22: 1. Nxb7 (If 1... Bxb7 2. Nxe6+ family fork !!) 1...Qc7 2. Rxd8

Puzzle 23: 1. Bg5+ Kxf7 2. Ne5+ Ke8 3. Qf7#

Puzzle 24: 1. Qxh5 (Threat to mate on h7) gxh5 2. Nxe6+ double check and fork.

Puzzle 25: 1. dxe5 (Sorry for the repeat problem)

Endgame Studies - Minor Piece v/s Pawn Endgame

After my last post about the Bishop+Knight Checkmate to understand basic principles and piece coordination here is minor piece endgame to play for win.







In a rapid game, I reached this position, with a player rated ~80 ELO points above me. And after 53 moves I reached this position.

It's White to move here and I was having some time trouble here so was my opponent. I had only a few seconds left on the clock.

I decided to go 54. Rxf5+ Now black has two options,
54...Kxf5 55. Nxg3+ (White is definitely winning here)

54. gxf5 55. Nxg3 (White is winning here too)

54...Kxe4 55. Rxb4  (And white can successfully convert it into a win)

I was ready for a critical rook-pawn endgame. But here my opponent decided to play the second option.

Which resulted in this position.

Now if black allows white to take the pawn with the Knight and sacrifice the Knight, white will still win not only because of his pawn majority on the queen side but also the white king will move up to  b3-b4 and eventually capture on b5.

So black here played 55... f4 attacking the Knight

Now the Knight in this position has only one job. To control the square just after the pawn(f3) or control the promotion square(f1).

This is winning for white.If the Black King approaches to e2/f2 to attack the knight and defend the f1 square (the promotion square) we move the knight to h2, Nh2, controlling the promotion square. If in case f1=Q then Nxf1

View here to see how the game exactly went about.

Hope this helps understand the strategy to be adopted in such situations.

Continue playing, Enjoy learning!!

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Bishop + Knight v/s King Endgame

Recently I came across this video where in former Women's world Champion Anna Ushenina, (Women World Chess Champion then) during the Geneva Women Grand Prix 2013 failed to checkmate with Bishop+Knight v/s lone King

So today I decided to show how to check mate with Bishop+Knight. And continuing with this trend I will talk about how to think in minor piece endgames.

Though you may not ever (or have a very rare chance to be in such a situation) face this this end game as any side, this is a good puzzle to test how good you are with minor piece coordination and square controls on the board.

Firstly let's see how our final position will look like and try to understand how to approach to that

Pattern 1:

Pattern 2:

Key points to remember:
1. Mating done in corner with square same color as of the bishop (Light squared corner since light squared bishop here)
2. Bishop+Knight form a boundary which the black king can not cross and are in sync with each other. For other squares coverage we have our king.
3. Keep pushing the king the corner as we desire else black king will run to opposite corner
4. Very similar to the idea of "boxing in the king" in case of Rook + King v/s lone King here consider triangles to corner the opposite king into.

Triangles look like this:

1. The bishop and knight cover all the red colored squares and form a wall the  king can't cross

2. White king will next play to e4 thus controlling the e5 square.

3. The Green triangle shown is the largest of the 3, where black king is currently inside.
4. Then push inside the red, followed by yellow and deliver mate.

So let's start with a random position

Follow my blog for more such posts, coming up next will be minor piece end games. Bishop/Knight + pawns to play for draw.