Among many existing definitions of the endgame, I have recently encountered an interesting one by Romanian Grandmaster Mihai Suba. In his interesting book „Dynamic Chess Strategy“, Suba suggests that „The endgame is a part of the game where temporary placement of pieces is not of primary importance.“ He then elaborates:
„More significant are:
1) Material advantage
2) Promotion races between pawns
3) Qualitative advantage in pawn structure or pieces
4) The possibility to bring the king into the fight“
Our goal here is not to indulge into a philosophical discussion about the nature of endgames. The reason I brought up Suba's definition is that it definitely points out key key features of the endgame that I would like to focus on. These are:
1) Increased value of pawns due to their promotion ability („Promotion races between pawns“ - Suba)
2) Increased value of the king due to his ability to actively join the fight („The possibility to bring the king into the fight“ - Suba)
One can easily make a distinction between the endgame and the middlegame based on these two factors. In the middlegame, pawns and the king are the most vulnerable pieces, while in the endgame, their strength (or lack thereof) often decides the outcome of the game. In this issue, we will specifically deal with the pawns.
Have you seen the movie „Searching for Bobby Fischer“? If you have, the story that I am about to tell will be familiar. If you haven't, I would warmly suggest you to see it. In this famous chess movie, a young and talented chess player from New York (Joshua Waitzkin (on the photo below)) is making his first chess steps as he tries to win the National Championship in the youngest age category. In his pursuit of the title, in the final round he meets with another similarly talented boy, who is also his nemesis. In the final scene of the movie boys reach a pawn endgame where both of them have passed pawns on a- and h-files:
When I saw this movie as a kid, I was fascinated by the pawn race and the final combination winning the queen by a skewer along the diagonal. Little did I know that a few years later something similar would happen to me. In 1998, as a 11-year old I played in my first World Youth Championship in Oropesa del Mar, Spain. In the penultimate round, for a long time I defended a pretty much lost endgame against a Spanish player Victor Alcazar. However, after a long struggle, a glimmer of hope appeared:
Despite sentimental, this endgame also holds educational value. It shows how important it is for a chess player to learn all aspects of endgame – the principles, the theoretical positions and the standard winning methods. Obviously my opponent was more proficient in these aspects at that point and he deservedly won the game. Pawn races with single passed pawns, as those that we have just seen, are a trademark of pawn endgames. Naturally, when there are more pieces on the board, these passed pawns are less dangerous as pieces can catch them more easily than the king can. For example, the bishop can catch a single passed pawn in one move. Even the short-legged knight can be very effective in catching a passed pawn, like in the next endgame study:
A beautiful example that not only shows the miracle of knight jump, but also exemplifies an important winning strategy in endgames (that we will talk about in depth in later issues) – „the distribution of work load“. To clarify this definition, let me summarize how it played out in this example: The knight has done a wonderful job of protecting white's passed a- pawn at first and then white king stepped in by threatening to catch black h- pawn. But at the appropriate moment, white pieces switched their roles and white king took guard of the a- pawn, while the knight used its power to reach from b2 to h1 and catch the h-pawn. In conclusion, single passed pawns are usually dealt with (caught or blocked) by pieces relatively easily. But even strong pieces such as rook can be defenceless against connected passed pawns. The classical example is:
Endgames with connected passed pawns come in all shapes and colors and they definitely deserve a chapter of their own. We will return to them later. Before we do that, we need to attend to several elementary principles relating to passed pawns. The first one of them is breakthrough. Let us first look at the textbook example:
We can see another typical breakthrough motive in the following position:
Let's now see the breakthrough in practice. A fresh game Navara – Bartel, Jerusalem, 2015, features an instructive moment in same- colored bishops endgame:
In rook endgames, breakthrough is just as important. Let's see how white used it to win the following position:
With this nice example we complete Endgame series for this issue. The most important lesson to take away is that the importance of pawns in endgames rises significantly compared to the middlegame.
In the „Test yourself“ section you can find puzzles involving pawn races and breakthrough motives to test your understanding of these principles. In the next issue, join us for further elaboration on importance of pawns in endgames, including themes of „electric pawns“, the common square of passed pawns, and connected passed pawns.
Puzzle 1
White to move
Puzzle 2
Black to move
Puzzle 3
White to move
Puzzle 4
White to move
Puzzle 5
White to move