First, I owe a little bit of explanation to the small group of people who read this blog regularly. Why didn’t I tell you that I was going to wrap this blog up so soon? The answer is that I didn’t know! I made up my mind just within the last week. One day I was talking with my wife about some computer issues I’ve been having. My laptop has been getting increasingly finicky, and I complained to her that I will probably have to get a new one soon. But why should I? This blog is essentially the only thing I use my laptop for. For everything else I use my desktop computer, a Mac. The only reason I keep a toe in the Microsoft Windows world is that Fritz, the computer chess program, runs on Windows.

And that’s when it hit me. When this blog was fresh and new, I wouldn’t have thought twice about getting a new laptop. But the fact that I wasn’t really even sure that it was worth it… means that it isn’t worth it. Or to put it in a more positive way: I’ve accomplished everything I ever wanted to with this blog. I’m satisfied. I can let it go now.

As I’m sure many of you have noticed, but have been too polite to say, my blog has been losing momentum for several years. I write fewer posts and have fewer readers than I used to. In 2015, my peak year, the blog had 56,545 views and I wrote 93 posts. This year I’ve had 10,002 views and written 27 posts. (Thanks to the five people who have viewed it so far today, putting it over the 10,000 threshold on the very last day of the year!)

That’s one reason for wrapping it up, but not the decisive one. If I still had a lot of things I wanted to say, it wouldn’t matter whether the audience was large or small. But the pandemic, and my exit from regular tournament chess, has given me less to write about. I tried getting back into the tournament scene this year, playing two tournaments, but both of them were disasters.

I felt guilty about those bad tournaments, guilty because I let my readers down and myself down. I do not want this blog to turn into a woe-is-me recap of my defeats. At this point I’m still undecided about whether and how much I’m going to get back into tournament chess, but doing it just so that I can keep my blog going seems like the wrong reason. I have to admit that my desire to play tournament chess is waning. More and more, I find myself thinking that it’s time for White and Black to end their endless battle, shake hands and declare a truce.

Finally, this blog is a lot of work. I have always really worked hard on crafting my posts — and it seems as if I work harder and harder as time goes on. I do love the craft of writing, but maybe there are other things that I should use it on.

Now that I have thoroughly depressed all of you, let me talk about the positives! First of all, I am so grateful to everyone who has read and enjoyed this blog. It constantly amazed me when people would come up to me at tournaments and say, “I read your blog.” It made me feel as if I was someone in the chess world, and also that I was writing something that people enjoyed.

I also loved the comments, which were of such high quality and often taught me things that I didn’t know. That’s one thing that makes a blog more satisfying than a diary. A diary entry just sits there, exactly the way that you wrote it, but a blog post spontaneously grows into something better.

For me, one unexpected joy of this blog was the way that it intertwined with Mike Splane’s chess parties, which he organized monthly from about 2009 to 2021. Mike was, among other distinctions, the most frequent commenter on this blog. His chess parties gave me great material, from games to philosophical insights like how to form a plan, and why forced moves are often underrated. I’m happy that I was able to use this blog to introduce readers to ideas like the Mike Splane Question. Also I’ve been able to publicize his book, Chess Wizardry, both here and in Chess Life. I was thrilled when John Watson wrote a review of Mike’s book in the October 2022 issue of Chess Life! It’s as if we’re keeping Mike alive, in a small way.

Another satisfying thing that happened very late in the lifetime of this blog was winning the Chess Journalists of America award for Best Chess Blog in 2021. I never expected to get any kind of award for this blog, and I think I earned it in part just for sticking around long enough! In 2007, when I started, blogs were all the rage, but very few blogs from that era on any subject are still going. I’d like to think that the award also was a public recognition of 50 Years of Chess, my pandemic project in which I wrote 50 posts on my 50 years in chess, highlighting one game per year. In fact, the one piece of unfinished business for this blog is to collect all of those posts into one downloadable PDF. If I can do that easily, I’ll post the PDF in January 2023.

Now let me turn to the title of this post: anticipation of things future. What is left to look forward to? Well, first, I look forward to trying to get back into tournaments again, doing it for the right reasons and perhaps being better prepared. There’s a new group organizing tournaments in California called 1000 Grandmasters, whose goal is to create a chess “ecosystem” in the U.S. that would make it possible for the country to support 1000 grandmasters. It’s been a problem since forever: so many of the most talented players get to the end of their teenage years or their college years and find that chess is just not a realistic profession. 1000 Grandmasters hopes to change this with a donation-based model. To some extent, Rex Sinquefield is already doing that, but you always have to worry about the sustainability of a model that relies on the generosity of one person. We’ll see if 1000 Grandmasters can offer a better or at least a complementary approach.

What would it take to have 1000 grandmasters in the U.S.? That would be about three grandmasters per million people — the same relative population as in Lithuania (3.05 per million) and the Czech Republic (2.85 per million) and far fewer than Iceland (36.92 per million). But it would be a twelve-fold increase for the United States (0.25 per million, as of 2013). It seems scarcely possible… but “impossible” is the sort of thing that old people say. We’re talking today about reasons to look forward.

Also in the “anticipation of things future” department, I hope to get to work on a new mathematics book in 2023. I have a co-author, and we’ve sent out a proposal, but it’s been harder than expected to get an agent interested. The first two declined. The third one sounded extremely enthusiastic when we contacted him in November, but now we haven’t heard from him for a month and I have to wonder what’s going on. If it doesn’t work out with him, maybe we will go back to pitching publishers without an agent, because I know of at least two publishers that would be interested.

Maybe I will also look for new volunteer opportunities. At age 64, I really don’t have to hustle for work as much as I once did, and I would like to try to find other ways to make a difference. Writing books is one way, but also I’ve been thinking about things like sponsoring or helping refugee families. Or maybe teaching chess in the prisons. Or … ? I’ve barely even begun to think about the possibilities. I should try to think of this phase of my life as a time to feel more free than before, and free especially to try new things.

Of course, trying new things inevitably means letting go of some old things, but there is nothing wrong with that. Especially when the old thing has given me as much joy as this blog. There’s a lot of satisfaction in putting the last pot into the kiln, the last stitch into the quilt, or the last period on the page, and saying, “There. It is finished.”

Thanks, once again, to all of you for reading.

Finally, if any of you want to contact me for any reason, and if you’re not a bot, my e-mail is scribe (at) danamackenzie (dot) com. I’ll be glad to hear from you.

Happy New Year!

In Part 2 we went over this position with a Fine-tooth comb (ha, ha) and found that there are more possibilities in the position than he let on. His summary judgment that all such endgames are drawn appears to be much too hasty. In Part 3, we looked at a tiny modification of this position, moving White’s rook from a8 to a7, where White seems to be winning! In Part 4, I want to look at what this means for practical endgames. What if White or Black have worse king position? What if the passed pawn hasn’t advanced so far?

Let me start with the game that got me interested in this topic. One of my students, Emmy (rated about 500) reached the following position. Her opponent, I think, was about 1000 strength. So it’s fair to assume that neither of them have studied this sort of endgame before.

FEN: 5k2/1R3p2/p5p1/7p/8/7P/P1r2PPK/8 w – – 0 32

Here Emmy, as White, played 32. Rb6? In a certain sense this mistake doesn’t matter, because she will get more chances to put the rook in the correct place. But it’s disappointing that she didn’t realize yet that the ideal square is a7. First, because rooks belong behind passed pawns (the Tarrasch Rule). Second, because the rook on the seventh rank limits the activity of Black’s king. And third, because it eyes the pawn on f7, which we’ve seen can be an important pawn.

It’s also worth pointing out that there was no need to play 32. Ra7 just yet. White could also play 32. a4 Rc4 33. a5 Rc5. What is the point of this, besides prolonging the agony? Well, it forces Black’s rook to a less aggressive position after 34. Ra7 Rxa5. This may allow White’s king more freedom of movement.

Finally, there’s the question of pawn structure on the kingside. Where would White like to put her pawns? From parts 1-3, we know that the ideal formation is f2-g3-h4. So White could also think about moves like h4, Kg3, Kf3, and g3.

If you’ve read parts 1-3, all of these ideas are more or less obvious. Watch how Emmy gets into a more and more uncomfortable position because she doesn’t know these basic ideas.

32. … Rxa2 33. Rb8+ Kg7 34. Kg3 g5!

I like this move. White now can’t get to the ideal setup with pawns on f2, g3, h4, and king on f3.

35. Ra8 Ra3+ 36. Kh2 …

A painful choice. White’s king is going to be buried. Probably 36. f3 was better, fighting for every inch of space. After 36. … f5 or 36. … Ra4 White could try 37. h4!?

36. … h4 37. f3 Ra1 38. Ra7 f6 39. Ra8 Kf5 40. Ra7 f6 41. Ra8 Kf4 42. Ra7 Ke3?

FEN: 8/R7/p4p2/6p1/7p/4kP1P/6PK/r7 w – – 0 43

Black makes his first mistake of the endgame. If he had studied the previous posts, he would know that White has a much worse version of the Fine position — a not-Fine-at-all position. Black should be able to win by pushing his pawn to a3 and bringing his king to the queenside. Fine’s usual drawing method for White — sacrifice the rook for the a-pawn, then push the kingside pawns — is not going to work here because the pawns are so far back and the king is so passive.

It’s ironic that Black failed to exploit the most obvious advantage in his position, the passed a-pawn. The farther you push that pawn, the more dangerous it becomes. (This rule only applies until it reaches a3. As I’ve said before, you have to be careful about pushing all the way to a2 because it introduces perpetual-check motifs for the defender.) Because Black has left it on a6, White has time to take some pawns on the kingside and then bring her rook back to the queenside.

43. Rf7! …

I’m delighted that Emmy found this move.

43. … Kf2

Black continues to play on the wrong side of the board. Admittedly, this looks very dangerous but it’s a middlegame move, not an endgame move. Black is trying to checkmate White, which shouldn’t work.

44. Rxf6 Rg1 45. Rxa6 …

Black has burned his bridges on the queenside. Now it’s win on the kingside or bust.

45. … Rxg2+ 46. Kh1 Kg3 47. Ra5 Kxh3

FEN: 8/8/8/R5p1/7p/5P1k/6r1/7K w – – 0 48

Here, again, I think it helps to know the endgame. Unless Black can win the f-pawn outright, it should be a draw. So White’s paramount objective should be either to hold the f-pawn or trade it for Black’s g-pawn. Looking more carefully at the position, notice that any Black attempt to win the f-pawn will instead hang the g-pawn. So … Kg3 runs into Rxg5+. If … R-?2 (where “?” is any letter from b to f), then Rxg5 both wins the g-pawn and defends against the back-rank mate. If … Rg3 White can just pass with any rook move on the fifth rank. Thus, because any attempt by Black to improve his position will fail, White can simply pass. All she needs to do is play R-?5, where “?” is any letter from b to f. Admittedly, this is a pretty subtle idea and so it is not too surprising that Emmy played

48. Ra4?? Rf2

Now the game is lost because Black wins the f-pawn and has a two-pawn lead. However, Emmy loses the thread here and forgets about the main threat.

49. Ra5?? Rf1 mate.

Now I’d like to show one more Fine-like endgame from my own tournament experience. Here I was playing a future Grandmaster, who was at the time “just” a 2200-level player, around the same rating as me. I was Black and got to the very promising position below.

Steven Zierk — Dana Mackenzie

2008 Memorial Day Classic

FEN: r1r3k1/p4ppp/8/3p1b2/8/N1P5/P4PPP/R2R2K1 b – – 0 21

What’s this? A position with minor pieces on the board, not just rooks? Well, one of the benefits of studying any simple endgame (K+P, R+P, etc.) is to help us orient ourselves in the more complex endgames that precede them. In this position, I clearly failed to make the most of my advantage. I was too impatient to activate my rooks, and I did not think enough about things like White’s stranded knight, how to maximize the advantage of my bishop over his knight, and whether I could do better than just trading into a rook endgame. The move I played was 21. … Rxc3?, and we’ll look at it a bit later. But first I’d like to look at the best move for Black:

21. … Rc5!

Black’s rook and bishop dominate the White knight, which has no moves. The rook move also serves two other useful purposes, threatening to double on the c-file and protecting the vulnerable d5-pawn. It’s very disappointing to me that I missed a move which had so many obvious strong points. Also, more subtly, we’ll see that Black gets a better rook and pawn endgame by avoiding the temptation to go into the rook and pawn endgame too soon with 21. … Rxc3. Patience is always a virtue in chess!

22. Rd2 …

Because this is not an actual game variation, I am mostly going to show you best play for both sides according to the computer. I’m almost certain that Zierk would have played this move.

22. … g6

Also possible is 22. … Kf8, leading to a very similar sort of position. I think that 22. … g6 is more obvious, though. It protects the bishop and thus establishes Rxc3 as a more serious threat, and it also prevents back-rank mates.

23. Nc2 Bxc2!?

A surprising move, because we’ve just avoided a B-for-N trade two moves earlier. But now, thanks to the tempo gained with … Rc5, Black has a tactic that wins a pawn by force. Also, Black judges here that once White’s knight gets to d4, Black won’t have the superior minor piece any more.

24. Rxc2 d4 25. c4 R8c8 26. R1c1 d3! 27. Rc3 d2 28. Rd1 …

White is forced to give up the c-pawn to prevent Black from promoting.

28. … Rxc4 29. Rxc4 Rxc4 30. Kf1 …

White has to guard against the back-rank mate. This allows Black enough time to win the a-pawn.

30. … Rc2 31. a4 Ra2 32. Ke2 Kg7 33. Rxd2 Rxa4

FEN: 8/p4pkp/6p1/8/r7/8/3RKPPP/8 w – – 0 34

Getting at last to a rook-and-pawn endgame with a passed a-pawn. Black is hoping to get to the Finer position (which would be a win, part 3) but not the Fine position (which would be a draw, part 2). However, in everyday, garden-variety endgames like this one, he isn’t able to reach either position. Let’s see what happens when Black tries to do so.

34. Rd7 a5

Here I would perhaps lean towards … h5 followed by … Kf6, to activate my king first. However, Fritz (the computer) has a strong preference for pushing the a-pawn first. As we saw in our first endgame, pushing the passed pawn is important to establish it as a real threat!

In any case, the computer’s move is a principled move. To reach either the Fine position or the Finer position, Black needs to push his pawn to a3. However, there is a cost: the tempi Black spends pushing the pawn are not spent activating the king. As a result, Black’s king will be too passively posted and the position will be a draw.

35. Ra7 Ra2+ 36. Ke3 a4

Again, no fooling around — Black means business with his a-pawn. But this gives White time to shut Black’s king out of the third rank.

37. Ra6 a3

FEN: 8/5pkp/R5p1/8/8/p3K3/r4PPP/8 w – – 0 38

As we can see, Black has tried and failed to get to the Finer position. His rook and pawn are in the right place, but his king is still stuck back on g7, instead of on f6 where it should be. If Black wants to activate his king, he will have to come around via the back route, f8-e8-d8 etc., and this will cost him at least the f-pawn, as we discussed in part 2.

This example may explain Fine’s judgment that such endgames are typically drawn. To even have a chance to win, the stronger side needs to advance the pawn to the sixth rank. But in most practical cases, that takes time. The defender has ways to take advantage of that time. He can cut off Black’s king, as he has done here. In other cases, he might be able to make his own king more active — say, marching it to g5 in case Black’s king commits to the queenside. Or maybe White can play g4 and h4, preventing Black from achieving the desirable pawn chain f7-g6-h5 or bringing about favorable pawn exchanges. The only way for White to lose would be to sit around and do nothing, so that Black can advance the pawn to a3 and then play the “bridge-building” maneuver that I wrote about in Part 3.

Believe me, I’ve looked at a zillion variations to see if there is some way that I could have forced a win against Zierk in this endgame, but I have not found one. Black certainly had winning chances, but not a forced win.

I’m sure that some of you are curious about what actually happened, because as I’ve said, all of the above is computer analysis. What really happened (going back to the first Zierk-Mackenzie position) was

21. … Rxc3? 22. Rxd5 Rxa3 23. Rxf5 Rc8

FEN: 2r3k1/p4ppp/8/5R2/8/r7/P4PPP/R5K1 w – – 0 24

The threat, of course, is 24. … Rxa2, when White can’t recapture because of a back-rank mate. I thought I was just winning a pawn, which is probably why I was so willing to trade my bishop for his knight. But as we have seen, winning a pawn is no guarantee of victory in a rook-and-pawn endgame!

24. Kf1 f6

Stopping back-rank threats, and also preventing him from defending the a-pawn via Rf5-e5-e2.

25. Rf3! …

I greatly underestimated this move. First, it saves the a-pawn for the time being. And even though White’s pawn formation on the kingside is wrecked, that is not usually fatal in these endgames. If White is able to advance his pawn to f5, it will actually be quite a strong pawn formation.

25. … Rxf3 26. gf Rc2 27. a4 …

FEN: 6k1/p5pp/5p2/8/P7/5P2/2r2P1P/R4K2 b – – 0 27

Here I made an instructive mistake.

27. … a5?

Probably played with a few seconds’ thought at most. I missed the fact that Steven’s doubled f-pawns (those supposedly weak doubled f-pawns) allow him to defend the a-pawn horizontally, with Ra1-e1-e4. For that reason, it was essential for me to play 27. … Rc4! 28. a5 and now 28. … a6!, when White can no longer play horizontal defense because his rook can’t go to e5. However, I think that White still has very good chances to save a draw if he activates his rook and does not bother with hanging on to the a-pawn. So I would recommend 29. Kg2 Rc5 30. Rb1! Rxa5 31. Rb7, followed by Ra7, f4, and f5, when will be hard for Black ever to free his king. Again, I’ve looked long and hard at this on the computer and have not found any forced wins for Black.

28. Re1! Kf7 29. Re4 …

White has consolidated and I never was able to win a pawn. The game finished as follows:

29. … Ra2 30. Kg2 g6 31. f4 f5 32. Rd4 Ke6 33. Kg3 Ra3+ 34. f3 Rb3 35. Rc4 Rb4 36. Rc7 Rxa4 37. Rxh7 Ra1 38. Ra7 Kd5 39. Kh4 Kd4 40. Kg5 Rg1+ 41. Kh6 Rg1+ 42. Rxa5 Kxf4 43. Ra6 Kxf3 44. Rxg6 Rh1 45. Kg5 Rh2 1/2 – 1/2

A really convincing endgame save by the future GM Zierk.

Thanks for my readers’ patience during this long series! You’re probably sick of rook and pawn endgames by now. Take-home points from this last installment:

• For beginners, it all starts with the Tarrasch Rule. Rooks belong behind passed pawns, whether it’s the defender’s rook or the attacker’s rook.
• For more advanced players, everything in this endgame matters. Advancing the pawn to the sixth rank (but not the seventh) matters. Having an active rook, ideally on the seventh rank, matters. Active king position matters. Pawn structure on the kingside matters (with f2-g3-h4 or f7-g5-h5 being best). If the player with the extra pawn is deficient in one of these areas, he probably won’t have a forced win. If the defender is deficient in one of those areas, he is in danger of losing.
• For the player with the extra pawn, giving up the passed a-pawn to win a pawn on the kingside is generally not a winning strategy.
• Think hard before trading into a R+P endgame with an outside passed pawn. If you are the defender and a pawn down, it may be the only way to save the game… but the draw may not be as easy as you think (if you’ve read books like Fine’s). If you are the player with the extra pawn, you will probably have winning chances but not a forced win. If you have other options that give you a clearer advantage, you should probably go for them.
• If you do get into this endgame and have the extra pawn, try to head for the Finer position (with the rook on a7) rather than the Fine position (with the rook on a8). Be bold about moving your king to the queenside. And try to set up the bridge-building maneuver discovered by Steckner, with Ra7-c7-(c2, c4, or c6)-(a2, a4 or a6), which is the key to winning that position.

In Part 2 I discussed the position below, which is position 367 in Reuben Fine’s Basic Chess Endings. We saw that it is drawn with best play for both sides, but the issue is considerably more complicated than Fine would have you believe. In brief, the main line goes 1. Kf3 h5 2. h4 Kf6 3. Ke3 and now Black draws with 3. … Kf5! and only with that move. White’s best try is to keep Black’s king out with 4. f3 Ra3+ and then either 5. Kd4 (Fine) or 5. Ke2!? (Fritz 17) lead to a draw but require very precise play.

After I saw that the only drawing move for Black is 3. … Kf5! I started wondering, “What if White’s rook were on a7 instead of a8?” Then Black would not be able to play 3. … Kf5 because White would win the f-pawn with check. Is White winning in this position, or does Black have some other way to draw?” When I tried playing the position out against the computer, I found that it was very difficult to draw. In fact, I believe that the modified position, with the rook on a7 on a8, is a win for White! I call this the “Finer position.”

FEN: 8/R4pkp/P5p1/8/8/6P1/r4PKP/8 w – – 0 1

My analysis of this position is very closely connected to a discovery made by the German player J. Steckner in 2003, which I read about on Wikipedia. One of my readers, Gerd Entrup, mentioned this endgame study in a comment to Part 1 of this series. Unfortunately, Steckner’s article appeared in the German chess magazine “Schach,” which I do not have easy access to (and I don’t read German anyway). I believe that the “Finer position” is in some ways more remarkable because it highlights how narrow the margin is between winning and drawing. This study also starts three moves earlier than the Steckner study and builds upon the earlier study. So I have two questions for my readers:

• Is my analysis correct? That is, does White win in the Finer position, with best play for both sides?
• Has anyone — Steckner, or Dvoretsky, or anyone else — pointed out that the Finer position is a win for White?

One final word of warning: like my last post, this post contains tons of computer analysis. One sad result of working on this position with the computer is that I lost any faith in my ability to properly evaluate the position without a computer. Even with the computer there are certain mine fields. For example, as I wrote in Part 2, the endgames with the pawn on a7 and rook on a8 are almost always drawn, but the computer often fails to realize this and gives improper evaluations.

Okay, let’s go! In the Finer position, I’m going to start the same way that Fine does: 1. Kf3 h5 2. h4 Kf6 3. Ke3 … I see no reason to believe that Black’s first two moves can be improved upon, but I’ll leave that as a project for my readers.

Here we have the first major fork in the road for Black. First, Fine’s drawing technique no longer works. That is, if 3. … Kf5? 4. Rxf7+ Kg4 5. Rf6 White is soon going to be three pawns up, with an easy win. So Black needs to find another plan.

One possibility is 3. … g5!? This move radically changes the pawn structure, and as I said in Part 2, I don’t really trust it. I will not attempt to give a complete analysis (maybe another post?) but here is a sample line with best play for both sides according to Fritz 17: 3. … g5 4. Kd4! (An impressive move, offering a pawn in several different ways in order to activate the king.) 4. … gh 5. gh Ke6 (I’m going with what the computer says is best play here, although I think that most humans would play 5. … Rxf2) 6. Kc5 f6 7. Ra8! (At this point White finally has to deal with the negative consequences of having the rook on a7 instead of a8. If 7. Kb6 Rb2+ White does not have the nice hiding place for his king on a7.) 7. … Kf5 (The race is on.) 8. Kb6 Rb2+ 9. Ka7 Rxf2 10. Rb8 Kg4 11. Rb4+ Kg3 12. Kb6! (One of many places where White has to walk a tightrope. 12. Kb7? Ra2 13. a7 f5 is only a draw. The idea of Kb6 is to try to swing the rook to a5.) `12. … Ra2 13. Rb5 Rxa6+ (Black has to sac his rook before White can play Ra5.) 14. Kxa6 Kxh4 15. Rb7 Kh6 16. Rg7 … (See diagram.)

FEN: 8/6R1/K4p2/7p/8/7k/8/8 b – – 0 16

FEN: 8/6R1/K4p2/7p/8/7k/8/8 b – – 0 16

Ironically, the game would be a draw if Black didn’t have the f-pawn! Black would just self-stalemate his king on h1 with the pawn on h2. In the words of Mike Splane, the f-pawn is a “traitor pawn.” But as it is, White wins easily by bringing his king to the kingside. By the way, it would be a different story if White’s king were on a7, outside the square of Black’s f-pawn. That is one reason it was essential for White to force Black to sacrifice his rook on a6, rather than on a7! One of the many extraordinary subtleties in this endgame.

Let us now return to the position after 3. Ke3.

FEN: 8/R4p2/P4kp1/7p/7P/4K1P1/r4P2/8 b – – 0 3

In this position we’ve seen that 3. … Kf5? is bad and 3. … g5?! is dubious. Rook moves are not optimal because White would then get the chance to transfer his king to the queenside without even having to sac the f-pawn. So that leaves two options, 3. … Ke6 or 3. … Ke5. The first option leads to the Steckner position!

(A) 3. … Ke6 4. Kd4! … As usual, this bold pawn sacrifice is the only way for White to play for a win.

4. … Rxf2 Consistent. No other moves need to be considered.

5. Rc7!! … Steckner’s startling discovery, which upends the theory of this endgame. The fact that White moves his rook to the side is not surprising. He should always do this as soon as he gets a chance, in order to make his rook an active piece. But why does the rook go to c7 instead of b7?

FEN: 8/2R2p2/P3k1p1/7p/3K3P/6P1/5r2/8 b – – 0 5

The reason is, as usual, subtle. Basically, White needs to perform a delicate juggling act between two possible winning plans. One plan involves moving the king to b3, playing a check with his rook on the fourth rank, and then moving Ra4. For this plan, it doesn’t matter whether the rook is on the b-file or the c-file. The second plan involves moving the king to b5, playing a check on the fourth rank, and moving Ra4. For this plan, it is essential for White’s rook to be on c7. If it were on b7, then the king at b5 would get in the way of the rook, and Rb4+ would not be possible! White needs to keep both winning plans in play, because his choice of plan depends on what Black does.

Hang on, we’re just getting started!

5. … Ra2 If anybody wants to try to save this position for Black, another desperate option would be 5. … Kd6 6. a7 Kxc7?! 7. a8Q. It’s conceivable to me that Black might be able to reach a fortress position, say with the rook on e6 and the king on g7. We’ll see a couple other places where Black has options to go into a rook-versus-queen endgame. These are very difficult to evaluate, because the computer always evaluates the position at +4 pawns (or more) for White, but the computer has a “blind spot” where fortress positions are concerned. On the other hand, humans have blind spots, too. So I think that all we can say is that the rook-versus-queen endgames offer Black some practical drawing chances.

6. a7 Kf5 Now there would be no point to 6. … Kd6, as after 7. Rxf7 White has a better version of some of the positions we’ll see later.

7. Kc4!! … Only this move wins! As I said before, White is juggling two winning plans, one with Kb5 and one with Kb3, and Kc4 is the only move that makes both continuations possible. Notice that it was essential for White to resist the temptation to take on f7, because after 7. Rxf7+? Kg4 we get the type of drawn position that Fine analyzed in Basic Chess Endings.

Although I have nothing but admiration for Steckner’s ingenious concept, I will just mention that Fritz 17 (or presumably, any modern computer engine) finds the moves 5. Rc7!! and 7. Kc4!! in a second or less. It was only after my computer “discovered” these moves that I started hunting around in Wikipedia to see if this was known, and found out about Steckner’s article. What’s amazing to me is that it was not known before Steckner’s article in 2003. Tradition, and the weight of authorities like Fine, blinded human chess players to the correct plan, and it took the even greater authority of the computer to take the blinders off.

Now there is another fork in the road between two strategies for Black. He can either continue his king invasion with 7. … Kg4, or he can play more slowly with 7. … f6.

(A1) 7. … Kg4 8. Kb3! Ra6 9. Rc4+ Kxg3 10. Ra4 …

White completes his key maneuver. The Wikipedia entry explains it well. “Black is forced to sacrifice his rook for the pawn without White having to move his king all the way to a7. These many extra tempos make the difference between winning and drawing or even losing.”

Actually, even with the “many extra tempos” it’s still unbelievably close.

10. … Rxa7 11. Rxa7 Kxh4

FEN: 8/R4p2/6p1/7p/7k/1K6/8/8 w – – 0 12

Now comes the last twist in this extraordinary endgame.

12. Kc3!! …

Actually, any move of the king to the c-file (c2, c3, or c4) wins. However, 12. Rxf7? only draws! How many of us, facing an armada of three passed pawns against our rook, would have enough courage to not take one of them? But it turns out that the most important thing here is to bring the king to the kingside as quickly as possible. There are too many possible variations for me to go over them all, but here is a sample line that shows you why it is important for White to not take on f7:

12. … Kg3 13. Kd3 h4 14. Ke2 h3 Alternatively, 14. … Kg2 gives White just enough time to play 15. Rxf7 (notice that White has saved this move until he knows he can get away with it) h3 16. Rf2+! (all other moves draw) Kg3 17. Rf6! (all other moves draw) g5 18. Kf1 and White wins.

15. Kf1 h2 Alternatively, 15. … f5 16. Rg7 would lead to the “traitor pawn” endgame we saw above.

16. Ra3+ and White wins. Notice that here White is happy that his rook is still on the a-file (rather than the f-file) and therefore able to give checks from the side.

Wow, what nerves of steel it takes to play this endgame correctly!

Now let’s go back to the position after 7. Kc4!!, because Black had another possibility.

(A2) 7. … f6

FEN: 8/P1R5/5pp1/5k1p/2K4P/6P1/r7/8 w – – 0 8

Black realizes that 7. … Kg4? only played into White’s hands, so he plays a slower variation designed to liquidate pawns on the kingside. White’s answer is not difficult to find, if you’ve been paying attention so far.

8. Kb5 …

As I said above, here is where the position of the rook on c7 (rather than b7) becomes important. White is poised to answer 8. … Kg4? with 9. Rc4+! followed by Ra4. Instead of getting a rook against three pawns, White gets a queen against three pawns!

8. … Rb2+

Best try, according to the computer. If Black continues his plan with 8. … g5, White plays 9. Rc5+! A cute move! On either 9. … Ke6 or 9. … Kg4, White plays a rook check followed by either Ra4 or Ra6. On 9. … Kg6 White simply plays 10. Kb6. With Black’s king now stuck in a passive position, Black’s kingside pawns cannot accomplish anything.

9. Kc6 Rc2+ 10. Kb7 Rb2+ 11. Kc8 Ra2 12. Rg7! …

One more “only move,” according to the computer. 12. Kb8 is too slow — 12. … Kg4 draws.

12. … g5

Now or never. But Black comes up a tempo too late.

13. Kb8 Kg4 14. a8Q Rxa8 15. Kxa8 Kxg3 16. hg fg 17. Rxg5+ Kh4 18. Rg8 Kh3 19. Kb7 (Can this king really get there in time?) h4 20. Kc6 Kh2 21. Kd5 h3 22. Ke4 Kh1 23. Kf3 h2 24. Ra8 … White releases the stalemate and forces mate next move. Whew!

When I showed the position to two of my friends, Thadeus Frei and Gjon Feinstein, neither one of them was able to find the first key move, 5. Rc7!! However, I give a lot of credit to Gjon because after I showed him this move, he realized that the idea is essentially a “bridge-building” motif as in the Lucena position. I really like this analogy because it places the Steckner endgame into a context of previous endgame knowledge. I especially like variation A2, where we build two bridges at once, or maybe it’s a two-lane bridge, with one lane leading to a4 via c4 and the other lane leading to a6 via c6.

Now let’s go back once again to the position on Black’s third move and consider the final option for Black, which I think is the most pugnacious.

(B) 3. … Ke5!

Black is determined to give no ground, and in particular he tries to prevent White from executing his main plan of Kd4 followed by the king invasion of the queenside, as well as all the sub-plans involving the bridge-building trick. Now we enter virgin territory, unrelated to the Steckner position. But Black’s move does have a cost. When he moves his king to e5 (or any square on that rank) he gives White checking distance behind the king, and that makes it easier for White to activate his rook.

4. Kd3 Rxf7

Black can delay playing this move, but I don’t see any advantage in doing so.

5. Re7+ …

White takes advantage of the extra checking space to free his rook with a tempo.

5. … Kd5

Here is another position where Black’s best practical chance may be to go for a rook-versus-queen ending with 5. … Kd6 6. a7 Kxe7 7. a8Q. I believe that Black could set up a successful fortress if he could get his rook to e6 and his king to g7. Unfortunately, I don’t know if that will ever be possible. White’s back-rank control may prevent it. As for White, I think that g7 is the ultimate perfect destination for his king. If White gets his king to g7 and queen to f8, White wins.

6. a7 Ra2 7. Rxf7 …

Here is the cost of Black’s aggressive king play. The indirect exchange of pawns, with Black winning the f2 pawn while White wins the f7 pawn, favors White. The reason is that a new winning motif has now appeared for White. In many variations, he can give up the a7 pawn for the g6 pawn, and then he will be able to play Rg5+ and collect the h5 pawn as well. Just as in line (A), we will now have a situation where White has two separate winning plans. One involves running the king up the a-and b-files. The other involves giving up the a-pawn, running the king to the kingside, and winning the endgame with R+2P versus R. Black will not be able to stop both of these plans.

7. … Ra3+ 8. Kc2 Kc4

This may be too ambitious, and it’s possible that Black should play more conservatively with 8. … Kc5. But it looks as if he still has problems after 9. Kb2 Ra6 10. Kb3, when 10. … Kb5 11. Rg7 Kc5 or 10. … Ra1 11. Rg7 Kc5 lead to the same critical position (B4) that we’re going to see below. So I’m going to treat 8. … Kc4 as the main line.

FEN: 8/P4R2/6p1/7p/2k4P/r5P1/2K5/8 w – – 0 9

It looks as if White isn’t making progress at all, as Black’s king and rook frustrate all of his attempts to activate his king. But as often happens in the endgame, the way to make progress is not to commit yourself, but to force your opponent to commit himself.

9. Rc7+! …

This is not particularly hard to find, but it’s subtler than it looks. White’s idea is simply to force Black to choose a plan. Every move has drawbacks. If (B1) 9. … Kb4 or (B2) 9. … Kb5, then the Black king is cut off from the kingside (momentarily), and White can use this time to get a head start in the king race to the kingside with 10. Kd2. If (B3) 9. … Kd4 with the intention of … Ke3, then White can play the double-lane bridge-building idea, with the rook coming to c3 (check) and then either to c4 (check) and a4 or to c2 (check) and a2. Finally, if (B4) 9. … Kd5, the latter played with the intention of 10. … Kd6 followed by 11. … Kc5, then White has enough time to put his rook behind the g-pawn, take on g6, bring his king to e3 (close enough to defend the g-pawn with the king if it is attacked) and then play Rg5+ followed by Rxh5.

Probably the trickiest of these lines is B4, so I’ll just look at that one and leave the others for you to work out.

9. … Kd5 10. Kb2 …

If the Black king goes one way, I go the other.

10. … Ra6 11. Kb3 …

Here 11. Kc3 works too, but White can win even with his king starting on b3.

11. … Kd6 12. Rg7 Kc5

As mentioned earlier, there are several other move sequences that arrive at this position, so it seems like an important one. Black is doing his best to prevent White’s king incursion on both sides of the board. Still, it’s not enough.

13. Kc2! …

The move 13. Rxg6? would be too impatient. According to Fritz, 13. … Rxa7 14. Rg5+ Kd4 15. Rxh5 Rg7 would be a draw. White needs to bring his king closer to the kingside before taking on g6.

13. … Kd5

Nothing else works. If 13. … Ra3 14. Rxg6 wins in the same way as the main line given below. If Black tries to get the jump on White’s king with 13. … Kd4, White doesn’t mind. Then he just switches to his other plan, of going to the queenside and building bridges. Thus, 13. … Kd4 14. Rc7! Ke3 (or 14. … Kd5 15. Kc3 Kd6 16. Rg7 Kc5 17. Rxg6, etc.) 15. Kb3 Kf3 16. Rc3+! Once again we see this beautiful idea of the two-lane bridge. Depending on Black’s move, White will either play Rc4+ followed by Ra4, or Rc2+ followed by Ra2.

14. Kc3 Kc5 15. Rxg6 Rxa7 16. Kd3! …

This is slightly more accurate than 16. Rg5+, although Fritz says that the latter move also wins (with more difficulty). But as we’ve seen before, the principle of this endgame is that it’s more important to gain a tempo with the king than to grab a pawn at the first opportunity.

16. … Kd5 17. Ke3 Ke5 18. Rg5+ …

Now that White’s king is “within reach” of the g-pawn, it’s okay for White to play this check. After 18. … K moves 19. Rxh5 White is winning.

Thanks for your patience in reading all the way through this long post and the long and sometimes confusing analysis! Nevertheless, I hope it will offer a concrete benefit for your ability to play this difficult endgame. As always in rook-and-pawn endgames, we’ve seen some interesting choices of gaining tempi versus gaining material, where the tempi are almost more valuable. We’ve also seen the importance of flexibility: White especially needs to be able to switch from one winning plan to another, based on what Black does. For that reason, I think that the key idea is to understand the winning plans, and not to memorize variations. With that in mind, here are White’s winning plans.

1. Steckner’s “bridge-building” plan. Bring the king toward the queenside, giving up the f-pawn. Bring the rook to c7. Continue with king to the b-file (b3 or b5, depending on what Black does) and the “two-lane bridge” maneuver, where the rook either goes to c6, c4, or c2 followed by a6, a4, or a2.
2. The old-fashioned plan of moving the king up to b5, extricating the rook from a7, and playing the king to b6 and a7. This plan is too slow to win if Black plays actively with his king, but may still work if Black chooses a different plan (such as pushing his kingside pawns).
3. If Black plays actively with the king, then White should be able to capture on f7, creating a position where Black has pawns on g6 and h5 and his king on the fourth rank. This introduces a new winning theme for White: move the rook to g7, give up the a7 pawn in order to capture on g6, play a check on g5 and win the h5-pawn. However, White should not rush to play Rg5+. He should first bring his king to the e-file, so that the g-pawn can be defended by the king after Rxh5.
4. Once again, it is important for White to be aware of all three of these winning plans, so that he can shift from one plan to another depending on Black’s moves.

In this post I’ll talk about position 367 in Reuben Fine’s Basic Chess Endgames, which he uses as the basis for his argument that such endings are almost always drawn. His analysis is correct but incomplete, and a careful look at the position will introduce us to the main drawing themes (for Black) and winning themes (for White).

FEN: R7/5pkp/P5p1/8/8/6P1/r4PKP/8 w – – 0 1

First let’s look again at what Fine had to say:

“The idea of the draw is this: In order to win, White will have to keep his pawn at a6, and march his king to the queenside. He will thus expose his kingside and have to lose at least one pawn. Once Black has captured a pawn, [White] will advance his king and will then win Black’s rook for the a-pawn, but White will emerge with a R vs. P ending in which his king is too far away to be able to effect a win.”

Here is Fine’s “model continuation”:

1. Kf3 …

White’s task gets more difficult if Black is allowed to play … Ra3, cutting off the king’s route to the center. I’ll have more to say about this in Part 4.

1. … h5

A move that Fine does not comment on. It’s very advisable for both sides to set up a pawn chain. The reason is that it takes a rook more moves to capture the pawns in a chain than it is to capture pawns that are side by side. (It takes 3 moves versus 2 if there are two pawns; 5 moves versus 3 if there are three pawns.) In rook endgames, every tempo is critical, so it’s a good idea to get your pawns into the best defensive formation. Of course, the chain f2-g3-h4 (f7-g6-h5) is better than the chain h2-g3-f4 (h7-g6-f5) because the king has to protect the base of the pawn chain for as long as he can. If the base is on the f-file, the king can be in the center of the board and still protect the base of the pawn chain.

2. h4 …

Played for the same reason. Fine also analyzes 2. Ke4 to a draw.

2. … Kf6 3. Ke3 Kf5!

An important move that Fine does not comment on. I am convinced that Black would not be able to draw if he didn’t have this move. That is what made me ask the question, “What if White’s rook were on a7?” which I’ll address in Part 3. On f5, Black’s king threatens to march into g4, after which White’s kingside pawn formation will swiftly collapse if he tries to move his king toward the queenside. To keep the king out, White is forced into making a weakening move.

4. f3 …

See my comments above. White’s pawns are now side by side, which makes them easier targets for Black’s rook.

4. … Ra3+ 

FEN: R7/5p2/P5p1/5k1p/7P/r3KPP1/8/8 w – – 0 5

Here we have another fork in the road that Fine doesn’t even notice. He gives 5. Kd4 as White’s only reasonable try. If you play that move, the computer’s evaluation immediately drops to 0.00 (a draw), in view of the variation 5. … Rxf3 6. Rf8 Ra3 7. Rxf7+ Kg4. Black’s moves are all perfectly timed. The rest of White’s pawn formation will now collapse. 8. Rf6 Kxg3 9. Rxg6+ Kxh4 10. Kc5 Kh3 11. Kg6 h4 12. a7 Kh2 13. Kg7 Rxa7+ 14. Kxa7 h3 and we will either have a draw by stalemate or perpetual check or by White giving up his rook for Black’s pawn. Very convincing, right?

However, in the diagrammed position, the computer (Fritz 17) plays the startling move 5. Ke2!? My first reaction was, “What the hell? It looks as if White isn’t even trying to win.” Yet Fritz 17 rates 5. Ke2 as +1.9 pawns for White!

Is the computer right? No. But it behooves us to take a look at what it is “thinking.” Remember, I’ve said before that it is crucial for Black’s king to be on f5. So the computer says, I’ll just wait for you to move your king away before I start racing my king to the queenside. If you don’t want to move your king, then you’ll have to move the rook. A logical move is

5. … Ra2+. If things weren’t weird before, they are about to get even weirder, because the computer plays

6. Kd1!? …

WHAT THE HELL? Does the computer even know how to play chess?? Once again, a word of explanation: the computer sees quite well that 6. Kd3 Ra3+ 7. Kc4 Rxf3 draws, as in Fine’s variation. The position of White’s king on c4, rather than d4, makes no difference.

This is a great example of how computers find moves that humans would not even consider. I would never play 6. Kd1, voluntarily imprisoning my king on the back rank. But the computer doesn’t care. After the king gets to b1, Black will have to let it out of prison.

FEN: R7/5p2/P5p1/5k1p/7P/5PP1/r7/3K4 b – – 0 6

Now we have a fork in the road for Black. What is the best way to play for a draw? Bring his king over to the queenside? Attack White’s pawns with his rook? Push his kingside pawns and try to trade off as many as possible? Or perhaps just sit and wait, since White doesn’t seem to be trying to win?

Even if you think that White’s play has been too bizarre to be relevant for human chess, I think that this is still an important position. It can also arise in cases where White’s king was less well-placed initially than in the Fine position, so that White has to crawl across the back rank. (That is, it’s not a matter of choice but a matter of necessity.) We’ll see an example in Part 4. In such a case, I think it’s important to know that with the king on d1 it’s a draw, but if the king were already on c1 (or if it was White’s move), then White would be winning.

I think that there is only one correct plan for Black, and it leads us to our second thematic draw. Black should play

6. … Ra3!

First, let’s look at what is wrong with the other choices.

(a) Running the king to the queenside most likely does not work. Even though Black can win White’s a-pawn, it will result in a trade of rooks, after which White will have a winning K+P endgame with his king closer to the kingside pawns. Sample line (courtesy of Fritz 17): 6. … Ke6 7. Kc1 Kd7 8. Kb1 Ra5 9. Kb2 Kc6 10. Ra7! (It’s useful to have this move in reserve to punish Black for abandoning the kingside.) 10. … Kb5 (Not 10. … Kb6? 11. Rxf7, when Black has a dilemma. 11. … Rxa6 allows a rook trade, but 11. …Kxa6 allows White to win a second pawn.) 11. Kb3 Rxa6 (Black doesn’t have to play this, but why then did he move his king all the way to b5?) 12. Rxa6 Kxa6 13. Kc4 and White wins. He marches his king to f6, forcing Black’s king to e8, and then pushes f3-f4-f5, winning a pawn and the game.

(b) The computer wants to play 6. … g5, forcing a trade of one pair of pawns, but I distrust this because Black’s two remaining pawns are separated and weak.

(c) After reading the above note, Black might want to try 6. … f6, preparing … g5. But now White can get away with a move that seldom works for him: 7. a7! We’ll see below why this is usually a mistake. But in this case, Black has basically put himself into a zugzwang on the kingside. He can’t move his king to the e-file because Re8+ will win. He can’t push his g-pawn because after … g5 and hxg, either recapture is bad: if … fxg Rf8+, and if … Kxg5 Rg8+. For this reason, Black is limited to rook checks — which will eventually run out because White will run with his king all the way to h6! Eventually we will get to a position like this:

FEN: R7/P7/r4ppK/5k1p/7P/5PP1/8/8 w – – 0 20

Now White wins with 20. Rb8 Rxa7 21. Rb5+ Ke6 22. Kxg6 etc. Keep this variation in mind!

(d) After seeing that 6. … f6 doesn’t work, I thought that maybe the way for Black to draw is just to pass. Keep the rook on a2 and move the king back and forth. But the trouble with this plan is that White does have a way to make progress, and if Black gives away two tempi for free, he will regret it. So, for example, after 6. … Kf6 (“I pass”) 7. Kc1 Kf5? 8. Kb1 Ra5 9. Kb2 White is relentlessly moving toward his goal while Black has made no progress. Black needs to put pressure on f3 more quickly, so a more challenging line is 6. … Kf6 7. Kc1 Rf2. As I’ll explain below, White does not want to play 8. a7, which only draws. Instead, White’s watchword in this ending should be to extricate his rook from in front of the pawn at the first opportunity — because he might never get another opportunity. After 8. Rb8! Ra2 9. Rb6+ Ke5 10. Kb1 the ending enters a very delicate and tricky phase. But the basic idea is that White will inch his king up the b-file unless Black stops him by bringing his king to c5. But in that case, after … Kc5, White will be able to plant his rook on f6. If Black then tries to bring his king back to e5, White plays g3-g4-g5 (if necessary) to cement the rook in place. Fritz’s analysis seems to show that this endgame is winning for White. In any case, White has clearly transformed the ending into a different configuration where he has very serious winning chances.

(e) After going through all the above lines and seeing that nothing seems to lead to a reliable draw for Black, I realized that the problem was that Black was not putting pressure on f3 fast enough. So, going back up to diagram three above, I concluded that the correct response to 6. Kd1 has to be

6. … Ra3!

Not a really hard move to find, but I think the surprising message is that Black is already on the precipice, and nothing else works.

Here is the thinking. Clearly 7. Ke2 would just be an invitation to a draw by repetition after 7. … Ra2+. Sacrificing the f-pawn leads to a draw like Fine’s, where White’s king is on c2 rather than d4 but it doesn’t really make a difference. For example, 7. Kc2 Rxf3 8. Kb2 Rf2+ 9. Kb3 Rf1 10. Rb8 Ra1 and Black’s king is headed for g4 and g3.

Finally, White could answer with the tricky move 7. Ra7, which indirectly defends the f-pawn because 7. … Rxf3?? 8. Rxf7+ Kg4 9. Rxf3 Kxf3 10. a7 leads to the coronation of a new queen. But Black has an even craftier answer! He can now play 7. … f6! But wait, didn’t we conclude that move was bad before? Yes, it was, but only because White was able to push his pawn to a7! But now, with the rook on a7, White doesn’t have that option, and he doesn’t have time to get it back because 8. Ra8 Rxf3 is fine for Black.

Wow! I love all of these schemes and counter-schemes that run 10 or 20 moves deep. Far too deep for humans to figure out in a live chess game, which is why it pays (hopefully) to study them in advance.

The only remaining option for White, after 6. … Ra3, is

7. a7 …

This is the move I’ve told you already that White should nearly always try to avoid. (And it isn’t just me — Fine said so, too.) Now let’s finally see why. After White pushes his pawn to a7, Black has to do only two things to secure the draw: move his king to g7 and then check forever with the rook. So, for example: 7. … Kf6 8. Kc2 Kg7 9. Kb2 Ra5 10. Kb3 Ra1 11. Kb4 Rb1+.

FEN: R7/P4pk1/6p1/7p/1K5P/5PP1/8/1r6 w – – 0 13

White is powerless to escape Black’s checks from behind. The only thing he can do is come back to the second rank, but then Black’s rook goes to a6/a5/a4 and laughs at him from afar. It’s instructive to compare this with diagram 4, where White’s king was able to find shelter on h6. For Black, the point of moving his king to g7 is twofold: (1) it prevents White’s king from finding shelter on the kingside, and (2) if White should ever try to play g4, Black will happily agree to a pawn exchange with … hxg fxg. The only passed pawn that White can create is the h-pawn, but the ending with the pawn on a7 and a passed h-pawn is a book draw even if Black didn’t have the f7 pawn!

It’s very important to be aware of this variation because it is Black’s only reliable drawing motif other than Fine’s variation. Black should (almost) always try to tempt White into playing a6-a7. That is really the point of the move 6. … Ra3! By threatening to take on f3, Black is trying to force White into playing a6-a7 to prevent it. Then the game is an easy draw.

I know this is a lot of analysis! I hope it will be useful to some of you. I’ll try to sum up the main points:

• Fine’s position 367 is a draw with best play, as Fine said.
• Both sides want to arrange their pawns in a chain, as this is the most difficult formation for a rook to chew up.
• White almost always wants to avoid playing his pawn to a7. The only exception is the extremely unusual circumstance where his king can infiltrate Black’s kingside and win a pawn there (for example, the position in diagram 4).
• White’s only serious winning plan is to bring his king to the queenside and march it up the b-file. The reason for leaving his pawn on a6 is so that his king can play Ka7 to escape checks, and his rook can then leave its defensive post on a8.
• Rather surprisingly, White can attempt this plan even if his king is passively placed on the back rank in the beginning. Once it gets to b1, its confinement on the back rank will be over.
• For White, it can be useful to sacrifice the f-pawn in order to extricate his rook from in front of the a-pawn. This needs to be calculated carefully, because Black is also trying to do the same thing: win the f-pawn. In the Fine position, the balance favors Black’s drawing chances, but even the slightest modification to the Fine position can shift it to favor White.
• For Black, getting the king to f5 is key. The threat of … Kg4 virtually forces White to play f3, otherwise White’s intended queenside foray will never even get off the ground.
• Once White has played f3, Black should pressure that pawn and capture it as soon as possible. Even the slightest delay may lose the game.
• For Black, there are two reliable routes to a draw. If White allows … Rxf3, then Black will draw as explained in Fine, by wiping out White’s kingside pawns and sacrificing his rook for White’s a-pawn at the last possible moment. If White plays a6-a7 to prevent … Rxf3, then Black has a thematic draw by moving his king to g7 and putting White’s king in perpetual check.

But in the last couple weeks, I have been diving deep into the secrets of one of the most tricky and yet also most common endgames in chess: the rook and pawn endgame where one side has an outside passed pawn (typically an a-pawn). I’m planning a four-part series, which I’ll divide up as follows:

• Part 1: Introduction
• Part 2: The Fine Position
• Part 3: A Finer Position
• Part 4: An Ordinary Position

Let’s jump in! Here is what I call “the Fine position.”

FEN: R7/5pkp/P5p1/8/8/6P1/r4PKP/8 w – – 0 1

To be specific, this is position number 367 in Reuben Fine’s Basic Chess Endings, page 341. First, Fine notes the general principle that is known (on Wikipedia, at least) as the “Tarrasch Rule”: for both the attacker and defender, the best place for the rook is behind the passed pawn. Of course, only one side can succeed in putting his rook there, and Fine says: “The game is drawn if the defender’s Rook is behind the Pawn, but lost if it is in front of the Pawn.” Further, he explains:

“When the Black Rook is behind the Pawn, the White Rook in front of it, we get the typical draw in No. 367. The idea of the draw is this: In order to win, White will have to keep his Pawn on R6, and march his King to the Q-side. He will thus expose his K-side and have to lose at least one pawn. Once Black has captured a Pawn, he [that is, White — DM] will advance his King and will then win Black’s Rook for the QRP, but White will emerge with a R vs. P ending in which his King is too far away to be able to effect a win. If White gets frisky and sacrifices more than one Pawn, Black may even win.”

Sounds simple, right? That’s what I thought, too, until I started playing this endgame against the computer. All of a sudden it turned out that White has an inordinate number of tricks and that it is extremely hard for Black to set up the sort of drawing procedure that Fine writes about. If Black’s king advances too early or too late, he loses. Gradually, after several hours of analysis with the computer, I started to come to an amazing conclusion: the following position, almost identical to the Fine Position, is a win for White!

FEN: 8/R4pkp/P5p1/8/8/6P1/r4PKP/8 w – – 0 1

I’ll call this the Finer Position and cover it in part three of this series. Let me say right now that I am not 100 percent sure that White is winning, but I can tell you two things with certainty. First, from playing this endgame against the computer, I can tell you that White’s chances of winning are much greater than Fine admits. Second, after analyzing this endgame with the computer, I can tell you that I have yet to find a way for Black to force a draw from the Finer Position.

I do think that Fine’s evaluation of the Fine Position is correct — it is a draw with best play — but even that is not as routine as he thinks. Also, there’s a broader lesson: there is no such thing as a typical position in this endgame. Even moving the rook from a8 to a7 may change the outcome. The details of the pawn structure, the king positions, and how far advanced the a-pawn is, are all crucial. As I’ll explain in part four of this series, I think that the default evaluation for this type of endgame is still probably a draw, but that is partly because White’s pawn will not usually be as far advanced as a6. Fine thought he was showing us a “typical position,” but actually he has given us a position that is almost as favorable as possible for White: the pawn has gotten to the sixth rank already, and his king is able to become active.

The fact that there is no typical position poses problems for the practical player trying to learn this endgame. In fact, after several hours of computer analysis my head is spinning, and I feel as if I know less about this type of endgame than I did when I started. In particular, I am less confident of my ability to tell the winning positions apart from the drawn positions. I think that the best thing I can do is give some winning motifs, some drawing motifs, some general advice, and a warning: if you think you know everything about this endgame, you probably don’t.

Finally, let me say a few things about what got me interested in this endgame and why I landed on the Fine Position. One of my chess students recently got to this type of endgame (rook and pawns where one side has an extra a-pawn) and lost. She and her opponent are both class-E players, so of course they did not have any idea of the right way to play. I thought that I would figure out what she did wrong and make an easy lesson of it.

Then I started playing it out against the computer and realized I hadn’t the foggiest idea how to draw her position! Another of Fine’s comments is quite apropos here: “There is no ending in which more mistakes in the transformation of a won position into a point scored are made than in R endings. Even the games of the greatest masters are often chock full of inaccuracies and sometimes outright blunders.” So whether you’re a class-E player or a master, these endgames are hard and there are going to be mistakes.

By the way, you might wonder, why did I consult Fine’s Basic Chess Endings? After all, that book is eighty years old. My answer has two parts. First, unlike opening theory, I thought that ending theory changes little if at all. For people like me, American players who grew up in the 1970s, Fine was THE endgame book. Probably ninety-nine percent of it, written in 1941, is still accurate today. Unfortunately, this particular endgame falls into the one percent.

Still, at some point a few years ago, I thought that I really should get a more up-to-date endings book. I’ve always been impressed with Jeremy Silman’s approach to teaching chess and his reader-friendly style of writing, so I bought a copy of Silman’s Complete Endgame Course (2007). This book is divided up conveniently into “Endings for the Class-E player,” “Endings for Class D,” “Endings for Class C,” and so on, and I have been gradually going through this book with my class-E student. So naturally, when I saw this game that my student had lost, the first thing I did was look it up in Silman. And guess what I found?

It wasn’t in class C. It wasn’t in class B. It wasn’t in class A. It wasn’t in the expert class. It wasn’t even in “Endgames for Masters.” That’s right, nowhere in his ostensibly “complete” endgame course did Silman mention this endgame, which I would have considered to be one of the most fundamental rook-and-pawn endgames of all. How dare he call his book a complete endgame course?

It was only after I spent some time with this endgame that I realized Silman’s wisdom. This is just not an endgame that you can study and get down to a science. Fine tried, but he was wrong. Rather than be wrong, Silman didn’t even try.

Now I know what some of you are going to say. Look it up in Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual! To those readers, I bow and say, you are right. I do not own a copy of Dvoretsky. I didn’t think it mattered. I thought that Silman would be encyclopedic enough for me. Now, after reading that Wikipedia entry on the “Tarrasch Rule,” I can see from the references that Dvoretsky has a discussion of this endgame. I don’t know if he discusses the Finer Position but he definitely mentions the key discovery (from 2003!) that makes the Finer Position different from the Fine Position. Because I do not own a copy of his book, I would be very indebted if one of my readers could look it up (perhaps after this series of posts is complete) and tell me whether I missed something.

Probably it’s time for me to buy a copy of Dvoretsky. It’s only $11.95 on the Kindle. Has anyone gotten the Kindle version, and can you tell me whether the formatting is acceptable?

Next time: Reams of analysis!

The first one I’ll show you is really, really embarrassing. I played like a class-C player in this game, no better. I failed in every phase of the game. I failed the opening, which I didn’t know and didn’t have a plan for. I failed at positional play, creating weaknesses that led to more weaknesses. And finally, I failed at tactics, missing a little combination that turned my opponent’s advantage into a rout.

But from your point of view — the reader — it’s actually good that I played so badly, because it gives you a chance to see how a master clinically dissects inferior play.

Kevin Wasiluk — Dana Mackenzie

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 d5 3. c4 e6

I have experimented a little bit with 3. … Bf5, but I was trying to play sounder openings in this tournament. But I quickly ran off the rails anyway!

4. g3 …

As I said in an earlier post, I have never studied the Catalan Variation enough to know what I am doing as Black. In the early years of my chess career, no one ever played it. That began to change in the 1980s. By now, I would venture to say that it’s the main line in double d-pawn openings (or at least it’s fighting with the London Variation for the title of “main line”).

One of my readers, Roman Parparov, said that I should consider playing the Dutch Defense to avoid all of these Catalans and Londons. Ironically, in this game I did end up in a Dutch Stonewall-type formation. But I was improvising, and it didn’t end well.

4. … Bb4+ 5. Bd2 Bxd2+

After the game my opponent said that he considers 5. … Be7 to be the most annoying variation. The point is that Black has lured White’s bishop to d2, where it kind of gets in the way of the other pieces. An example variation is 5. … Be7 6. Bg2 O-O 7. O-O dc, where White could reply 8. Ne5 if his bishop were still on c1. But with the bishop on d2, 8. Ne5 is unplayable and White has to look for other ways to recover his pawn, such as 8. Qc2.

This is a good example of the kind of insight you get when you study an opening. But I haven’t studied the Catalan. My move isn’t bad, of course, but it doesn’t really have a plan behind it.

6. Qxd2 Ne4 7. Qc2 O-O 8. Bg2 Nc6?

This is too slow, especially in conjunction with my next move. If I’m going to play … f5, which is already a slow and time-wasting move, then I should not compound my problems by wasting tempi with my queen knight. If I’m going to play … f5, I need to play … Nd7 and … c6.

Basically, my play here shows a lot of confusion. Yes, there are many Catalan variations where Black does play … Nc6, trying to put pressure on White’s weakly defended d-pawn. But the combination of … Nc6 and … f5 does not work very well.

Why didn’t I know this? Well, I just don’t play a setup like this very often. I’ve spent most of my chess career trying to get to positions with active piece play and open lines, rather than variations like the Stonewall with static pawn structures.

9. O-O f5 10. Nc3 g5

FEN: r1bq1rk1/ppp4p/2n1p3/3p1pp1/2PPn3/2N2NP1/PPQ1PPBP/R4RK1 w – – 0 11

A good case study of something I call “propagating weaknesses.” Because my d5 pawn is so shaky, I really want to defend it with … Ne7 and … c6. But if I play 10. … Ne7 right away, I didn’t like the way that his knight can just set up shop on e5, and then he can evict my knight from e4 with f2-f3 at some point. So I decided that first I would chase his knight away from f3 with … g5-g4, and then I would play Ne7, etc.

You might want to ask yourself, what’s wrong with this plan? Propagating weaknesses are the clue. By trying to rid myself of one weakness, I saddle myself with another.

11. e3 g4

I was actually pretty happy here. Because of the moves e3 and … g4, it becomes impossible for him to evict my knight with f2-f3. So what could possibly go wrong?

12. Ne`1 Ne7 13. Nd3 c6 14. cd cd 15. Rfc1 …

FEN: r1bq1rk1/pp2n2p/4p3/3p1p2/3Pn1p1/2NNP1P1/PPQ2PBP/R1R3K1 b – – 0 15

When we went over the game afterwards, my opponent (a FIDE Master) surprised me by saying that he thought he had a strategically won game at this point! My assessment during the game was very different. I knew that I was a little bit behind in development, but as compensation, I thought I had a strong knight on e4 that could not be dislodged.

Knowing what happened in the game, I think that his evaluation was much closer to the truth. Because of the “propagating weaknesses,” his knights now have two beautiful outpost squares, e5 and f4. And in fact, the threat of a knight coming to f4 is even stronger than the threat of a knight on e5, because the knight on f4 will target the most sensitive square in my position: e6.

15. … Bd7 16. Qb3 Bc6?

I hated playing this move. You can tell from my scoresheet, because I took 18 minutes on it, my longest think of the game. Actually, I hated all my options: 16. … Rb8, 16. … b6, 16. … Nd6, which are all purely defensive moves. What I really wanted to do was sac my b7 pawn, but I couldn’t find any variation that would give me plausible compensation for a pawn. The move I finally played was not good because it weakens e6 even more. Probably the least-worst option was 16. … Nd6, but of course this was hard to play psychologically because I thought the knight on e4 was the one good thing about my position. Emotion won out over objectivity.

17. Ne2 Ng6 18. Nef4 Nxf4 19. Nxf4 Qe8?

Again, not realizing how bad my position was. My last chance to stay in the game was 19. … Ng5. I need to keep at least one “good” minor piece on the board.

FEN: r3qrk1/pp5p/2b1p3/3p1p2/3PnNp1/1Q2P1P1/PP3PBP/R1R3K1 w – – 0 20

Now comes White’s nicest move of the game.

20. Bxe4! …

What a shock this was! I had been operating under the assumption that White would never want to trade his bishop for my knight, which would open up the f-file and create huge light-square weaknesses on his kingside. But I wasn’t looking at the concrete position. White’s move is completely justified, both strategically and tactically. Tactically, it simply wins a pawn. I couldn’t believe I had just given away a pawn so easily! Strategically, Wasiluk correctly assessed that (a) he has the dominant minor piece, and my bishop will never be able to take advantage of the weak light squares on the kingside; (b) he has the superior development, and the invasion of his rooks on the c-file will trump my dreams of attack on the kingside; (c) Black’s king is every bit as vulnerable as White’s king.

20. … fe 21. Qd1 …

A simple, quiet move that leaves Black defenseless.

21. … h5

Alternatively, if Black gives the pawn back immediately, say with 21. … Rf5, then White might play something like this: 22. Qxg4+ Kh8 23. b4! (to pry open the c-file) 23. … h5 24. Qh4 Qf7 25. a4 Rg8 26. b5 Be8 27. Rc8 Rg4 28. Qd8! and White’s attack is stronger than Black’s. However, this kind of computer analysis is, to me, less convincing than the three points labeled (a), (b), and (c) in my note to move 20.

22. h3 gh 23. Nh5 Rf3??

FEN: r3q1k1/pp6/2b1p3/3p3N/3Pp3/4PrPp/PP3P2/R1RQ2K1 w – – 0 24

My last move sums up my whole tournament in a nutshell. Having gotten in trouble through ignorance of the opening and positional mistakes (propagating weaknesses), I seal the deal with a catastrophic tactical oversight.

I was dreaming of trying to create some mischief on the kingside after 24. Nf4, when White awakened me from my dreams with

24. Qxf3! …

Oh, good grief. The rest of the game needs no comment.

24. … ef 25. Nf6+ Kf7 26. Nxe8 Rxe8 27. Kh2 e5 28. de Rxe5 29. Rd1 Kg6 30. Rd4 Kg5 31. Rg1 Re7 32. g4 Re4 33. Rg3 Rxd4 34. ed Bb5 35. Rxf3 Kxg4 36. Rxh3 Kf4 37. Re3 Bd7 38. Re5 Bc6 39. Kg2 a6 40. f3 b5 41. b4 Bb7 42. Kf2 Bc6 43. Re6 Bb7 44. Re7 Black resigns

Looking at this game, I feel as if I was in denial of reality all the way from move 10 to move 24, and it was only after 24. Qxf3 that I realized that I had been living in dreamland the whole time.

While I have concentrated in my notes on the mistakes I made as Black (because I want to do better next time), I do want to point out how smooth and convincing White’s play was. Every piece was just where he needed it to be at just the right time.

Lessons:

• Improvisation is a poor opening strategy against masters.
• Don’t let your emotions get in the way of an objective assessment of the position.
• Weaknesses beget other weaknesses.
• If you have a “bad” minor piece, try to keep at least one other minor piece on the board so that you won’t end up in a hopeless good piece versus bad piece endgame.
• Stay alert for tactics, always. Even if your position is already bad, don’t make it worse by allowing your opponent a tactical shot. Or if your position is already very good, stay alert for tricks that your opponent might miss because of discouragement. (Interestingly, this part of the game cannot be practiced by playing against computers, because computers never get discouraged and almost never miss elementary tactics.)

And finally, on the lighter side, here is what my foster kittens thought of my bad bishop on c6. Bad bishop! Bad, bad bishop!

I would write more about the scandal, but I think that every chess blogger, commentator, podcaster and streamer has already offered their opinions. Nothing that I say is likely to change anybody’s mind. But perhaps some of you might be interested in my previous blog post, Hans Niemann and the Fifth Endgame of the Apocalypse, dating from 2015. It is actually one of my favorite posts ever, about an endgame I never understood (K+2N vs. K+P) until I saw Niemann play it in virtuoso fashion as a 14-year-old. I still can’t say I understand the endgame, but at least I learned a few things from him.

The only relevance of my previous post to the scandal is this: I think of cheating as a pathological form of shortcut-taking. As you play over the endgame, and see how much work Nielsen must have put in, how much obsession was necessary to master every obscure detail of an endgame so rare that you might never play it even once in your life, ask yourself: Does this look like a person who takes shortcuts?

Instead of writing about the scandal, I’m going to go a different direction with this post. With his victory, Hans Niemann has added his name to the not very long list of American chess players who have beaten a reigning world champion of (classical) chess at a classical time control. (I’m assuming that Magnus Carlsen is technically still the World Champion even though he has indicated his intention not to defend the title against Ian Nepomniachtchi this fall.)

Here is, I believe, the complete list of Americans who have achieved this feat, compiled by consulting chessgames.com. I have not included exhibition games, simuls, blitz or rapid games, or games that were played before or after the World Champion’s reign. I am not a chess history expert, and chessgames.com is not necessarily a comprehensive source, so please correct me if you spot any mistakes or omissions.

Wilhelm Steinitz (3). Let’s not forget that Steinitz was an American citizen when he became the first World Champion. He defeated the second World Champion, Emmanuel Lasker, 3 times during the latter’s world championship reign: once at St. Petersburg 1896 and twice in the their championship rematch in 1896.

Harry Nelson Pillsbury (4). He went Steinitz one better by defeating Lasker 4 times while Lasker was World Champion: twice in 1895 at St. Petersburg, once in 1896 in Nuremberg, and once in 1904 at Cambridge Springs.

Frank Marshall (1). His moment of glory came in Paris in 1900, again with a win over Lasker.

Reuben Fine (2). It was a very long wait until the next American win over a World Champion. Reuben Fine broke the long drought with two wins over Alexander Alekhine at the AVRO tournament in 1938.

Bobby Fischer (7). Our champion World Champion-slayer, thanks to the seven games he won against World Champion Boris Spassky in their 1972 match.

Yasser Seirawan (2). I did not expect to see Yasser on this list. But he beat Karpov in 1982 at Phillips and Drew, and Kasparov in 1986 at the Dubai Olympiad. A fantastic and maybe under-appreciated achievement by one of the two best American players of my generation.

Boris Gulko (1). He defeated Garry Kasparov at Linares in 1990.

Gata Kamsky (1*). Another Soviet emigre who moved to America, he defeated Kasparov at Dortmund in 1992. He also won three games against Anatoly Karpov in their 1996 match for the “FIDE World Championship.” However, like many other chess historians, I do not consider Karpov the bona fide classical World Champion at that time. So I’ve given a Kamsky an asterisk. If you are a Karpov or Kamsky fan, feel free to change the 1 to a 4.

Hikaru Nakamura (4). Now we enter the twenty-first century, and there’s a new complication. Nakamura has tons of wins against Magnus Carlsen, but as far as I can tell, almost all of them have been in rapid or blitz games. As far as I can tell from consulting the chessgames.com database, his only wins at classical chess were three games against Anand (London 2011, Norway 2013, Tal Memorial 2013) and one game against Carlsen (Bilbao 2016). Please correct me if I am wrong!

Fabiano Caruana (2). His total would be higher, but his two wins against Anand (Zurich 2013, Tal Memorial 2013) came when Fabi was still playing under the Italian flag. So his only two wins against World Champions as a player for the United States were against Carlsen (Norway 2015, Norway 2019).

Wesley So (2). He defeated Magnus Carlsen at Norway 2018 and again at Norway 2022.

Hans Niemann (1). That brings us to the newest and most controversial member of this list, and also the youngest. He is the first American teenager ever to defeat a reigning classical World Champion in a classical chess game. What a stupendous accomplishment! I hope that the controversy will not discourage him but will instead motivate him to even greater achievements in the future.

Sadly, I was rooting for the wrong guy.

This month’s Chess Life has an interesting 50-year retrospective on the Fischer-Spassky match. I thought that the most insightful article was a short interview with IM Anthony Saidy, who hosted Fischer at his house before Fischer left for Iceland. Here is one thing I did not know. Chess Life asked, “To what extend [sic] do you think he was aware of how his demands affected Spassky psychologically?” Saidy: “He did develop a bit of empathy, which made him write Spassky an abject apology.” I would love to see that letter!

Also, Chess Life asked Saidy whether he thinks the 1975 match with Karpov would have been played if the Soviets had agreed to his conditions for that match. Saidy says, “The 1972 match was a near-miracle, because every one of 20 factors broke the right way. Flip a coin 20 times and try to get 20 heads. … My answer is no.”

I think that you can take the word “near” out of that sentence. The 1972 match was a stone cold miracle. In what sport, in what world and what universe does a benefactor (James Slater) materialize out of thin air just days before the event and double the prize fund? Also, in what sport, in what world and what universe does a competitor (Pal Benko) voluntarily give up his last chance at the world championship so that his countryman (Bobby Fischer) will get a shot? Both of those events were legit miracles.

Also, a semi-miracle was the fact that Spassky continued the match after Fischer’s forfeit in game two, when he could have easily done gone back to Russia as the Soviet chess federation wanted him to do. In a sense, this was not luck — Spassky cared about the match being played and winning it (or losing it) the right way. But a different player would have gone home in a second and won the championship by default.

Besides the miracle of Slater and the miraculous sportsmanship of Benko and Spassky, I’m sure that there were 17 other coin flips that all came up heads. But in 1975, one thing was hugely different: Karpov was not Spassky. For that reason, the match could not happen.

My friend Gjon Feinstein has alerted me several times to a YouTube channel called “Chess Dojo” (https://www.youtube.com/c/ChessDojo), a project of GM Jesse Kraai, IM David Pruess, and IM Kostya Kavutskiy. As many of you know, Jesse Kraai used to record lectures at chesslecture.com, and in fact he is the person who invited me to lecture for that website. I always considered Jesse to be a genius in the art form of the 15-to-30 minute chess video, and his lectures were more than enough reason to subscribe to that site. It was a great blow when he left ChessLecture in 2011, and so it’s thrilling that there is once again a place on the Internet where he is posting new videos. (And he’s been doing it for two years, so there are a lot to catch up on!)

Besides instruction, there are also chat videos or “Dojo Talks,” and in fact the first video that I looked at was a chat between Kostya Kavutskiy and David Pruess about the purchase of Play Magnus Group by Chess.com. This is apparently very recent news (just announced three days ago, and the deal is not really final yet). I have to say that it was quite a surprise to me. There’s so much star power around Magnus that one tends to think that everything he touches turns to gold. But not so!

I am not at all plugged in to the business side of chess, so I have to write on the basis of what David Pruess said in the video. According to David, the Play Magnus Group has been spending enormous quantities of money, and there was no way that the operation would be sustainable in such a fashion over the long run. He voiced the opinion that the most valuable asset controlled by Play Magnus Group is Chessable.com (another chess learning site). Presumably Chess.com will work to turn that into a profitable site while reining in some of the excesses elsewhere.

David’s role in all of this is very interesting, and I for one wish that Kostya had pushed him a little bit harder on it. Frankly, Kostya didn’t seem to know what questions to ask. David has been involved with Chess.com from its very beginning. I have the impression that he stepped away from it a little bit a few years ago, but he is still an insider. He definitely had advance knowledge of the negotiations with Play Magnus Group, and of course he is not at liberty to say exactly what he knew, when. The irony in all of this is that Pruess is (or was) very much against the capitalist system, and yet in spite of himself he seems to have become a rather successful businessman! That’s what I wish Kostya had asked him about. How has his thinking evolved on capitalism vs. socialism? Does it feel like a cop-out to work for a profit-making company? What would 20-year-old David Pruess think about 40-year-old David Pruess, and what would 40-year-old David Pruess say to him?

With those questions unanswered, I thought the best part of the video was the part where Kostya talked about his own reaction to the news. He talked about a sort of impostor syndrome, that he has always felt that a career in chess was not really a sustainable career. No matter what he did, someday the money would run out. He said at one point that this was a judgment passed down from his “forebears.” “You mean your chess forebears, right?” David asked him. No, Kostya said — he meant his actual progenitors, his Soviet grandparents! What an eye-opener that was for me. Even in Soviet Russia, the country where chess players had the highest status of any country in the world, babushka would still tell little Kostya not to be a professional chess player.

Here’s my thinking on the merger and what it might mean for chess. I feel as if chess has been dependent for too long on the “sugar daddy” model: find a rich patron and ride his money for as long as you can. This model is ultimately not sustainable, as Kostya’s grandparents could have told you. Eventually the sugar daddy dies or runs out of money. Occasionally a chess player gets rich enough and famous enough that they try to be the sugar daddy. (The two names on this list are Kasparov and Carlsen.) These also usually fail because they don’t have enough business acumen.

And then there is Chess.com. It’s a home-grown company without big names behind it, which has quietly been building its reputation and its presence in the chess world, to the point where they are now one of the largest organizers of online events. The fact that they are now able to acquire a big-name competitor for multiple tens of millions of dollars shows to me that they have a whole lot more clout in this space than I realized. In fact, one question that arises is: Will they have too much clout? Will they become a monopoly?

I don’t think so. To me, it’s a healthy sign when a company that grew up organically within the chess community, without big “sugar daddy” money behind it, is able to turn into a profit-making enterprise. That’s what chess really needs: an engine that can generate its own income. If Chess.com has figured out how, that would be fantastic for the growth of the game. It would mean that we wouldn’t have to worry about running out of money. Then we could finally reach a point where little kids’ grandparents can encourage them to consider chess as a career.

Alex’s event was more modest, with merely a $5,000 first prize and a $12,800 prize fund. But it was organized with excellent attention to detail, and I did not hear a single complaint. In fact, I think that everyone would be thrilled to see this tournament become a regular event. I would call it an “epic success.”

The open section had 45 players, including 13 international players, seven Grandmasters and six International Masters. The winners, with a score of 7/9, were Viktor Gazik, an International Master from Slovakia, and a “local boy,” Minnesotan Andrew Tang, who is already a Grandmaster. (Actually not a “boy” any more, as he’s 22 years old.) Apparently that score was not good enough for a Grandmaster norm for Gazik, but it was certainly impressive, as he played all of the other top five finishers. The only norm was achieved by FM Aaron Jacobson of New Jersey, who earned an IM norm with a score of 6 points.

The epic fail? Well, if you look way down the wall chart… way, way down the wall chart… all the way to the bottom, you’ll find my name with 1 1/2 points in 9 rounds. And that includes a half-point bye in round one, so in eight games played I had two draws, six losses, and no wins.

This is the second straight tournament that has been an absolute catastrophe for me, and it proves that the first one was not a fluke. Every part of my game was bad. I made horrible strategic mistakes. I overlooked tactical shots. I got in time pressure. My openings were bad, and when they weren’t bad, my middlegames were atrocious. I think the only phase I did okay in was the endgame, as both of my draws came in pawn-down endgames that I managed to save.

One thing I have definitely observed, in this tournament and the last, is that the opening landscape has completely changed. As White, most people play 1. d4 now, and they almost always go into either a Catalan or the London System. In the first forty years of my chess career, I rarely saw either of those openings. Playing as Black, I don’t have pet lines against either of them, and in these somewhat amorphous variations I have trouble finding a plan.

On the other hand, when I was White the opening wasn’t the problem. I had three Grand Prix Sicilians and one King’s Gambit. I’ve played the Grand Prix against the computer hundreds of times, and the positions are not at all unfamiliar to me. Yet I still somehow made bad decisions. In positions where I should have played calmly, I went all-out for the attack. In positions where I should have gone all-out, I played too passively.

I don’t want to dwell on it, because I know that this sort of moping post is not what people want to read. The thought did cross my mind: Is this a sign that I should give up chess? But when I thought about it, I realized that my chess losses, even six of them, did no harm to anything except my pride. So I can either give up chess, or I can give up my pride. I wrote this in a text to my wife, and she said, “Yes. That.”