Rook Endgames (6)

Rook endgames are not merely the most frequent endgames in tournament chess—they are often the positions where games are decided. GM Felix Blohberger approaches this reality with remarkable honesty: before creating this course, he revisited the subject himself, studied existing material including Dreev University's rook endgame courses, and then set out to present the topic through the lens of someone who has defended critical positions at the World Cup. The result is Rook Endgames - Essential Knowledge for the Practical Player, a course built not around abstract theory, but around the positions that actually appear when the clock is ticking and the result hangs in the balance.

More than half of all rook endgames at master level finish with the wrong result. Wins become draws. Draws slip into losses. Not because of blunders, but because of systematic misunderstanding. While modern players dedicate hundreds of hours to opening preparation, the phase that decides more games than any debut—the rook endgame—remains dangerously undertrained. Dreev University – Rook Endgames – Part 2 addresses this gap with surgical precision, transforming theoretical knowledge into practical winning technique.

GM Alexey Dreev and GM Pier Luigi Basso are launching a brand-new series: Dreev University.
Every month on the 21st, they will release a structured course designed to elevate your middlegame and endgame understanding. Each course follows a carefully crafted educational path, ensuring consistent, practical improvement.
The first course in this series dives deep into one of the most essential yet misunderstood areas of chess: rook endgames.

We are happy to present this fascinating interactive endgame manual by GM Nikolay Ninov. By analyzing more than 200 rook endgames from the recent Olympiad in Chennai, Ninov illustrates the most important and instructive aspects of the rook endgame theory.
Additionally, this database is highly interactive. The Computer Practice section allows you to apply your knowledge by playing some key positions against a strong engine.

The Practical Rook Endgames workshop is already a digital product. This product includes all the videos from the workshop as well as the PGN file related to the training sessions. Additionally, we include the PGN files from the lectures Rook vs Pawns and Rook and a Pawn vs Rook by GM Petar Arnaudov and GM Grigor Grigorov. These two lectures have been released on our YouTube channel.

Overall, the material consists of approximately 7 hours of video and a PGN database which includes 115 files!

If we think of endgame specialists from the late phase of the classical age, one of the first names coming up to mind is Ulf Andersson. Apart from his exquisite endgame technique and ability to squeeze a win apparently out of nothing, what impresses me is Ulf's general approach. He rarely strives for an advantage out of the opening or early middlegame, preferring to play long games in which the balance is disturbed at a late stage, typically in the phase of simplification to the endgame, or even deep in the endgame already. But once he has obtained an advantage (be it winning, minimal or symbolic) Andersson's play becomes a mixture of patient maneuvering, aimed at tiring the opponent, and flexibility accompanied by concreteness. He can change the setup or main plan according to the most subtle details, many of them revealed only after thorough analysis.