Ebookendgame PDF

Remote Chess Academy
Practical endgames
IM Asaf Givon
2017
Practical endgames - https://chess-teacher.com
Contents
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... 2
Lesson 1 – How to evaluate an endgame .................................................................................. 3
Lesson 2 – The principle of two weaknesses (karpovs classics) .............................................. 13
Lesson 3 – Pawn structure (weaknesses) ................................................................................ 22
Lesson 4 – Space advantage .................................................................................................... 27
Lesson 5 – King activity ............................................................................................................ 34
Lesson 6 – Pawn majority ........................................................................................................ 42
Lesson 7 – Defensive techniques............................................................................................. 48
Lesson 8 – General tips for successful endgame playing ........................................................ 56
Practical Part - INSTRUCTIONS ................................................................................................ 61
The Practical Part: 1. Endgame Evaluation .............................................................................. 63
The Practical Part: 2. Two Weaknesses ................................................................................... 64
The Practical Part: 3. Pawn Structure ...................................................................................... 65
The Practical Part: 4. Space advantage ................................................................................... 66
The Practical Part: 5. King activity ........................................................................................... 67
The Practical Part: 6. Pawn majority ....................................................................................... 68
The Practical Part: 7. Defensive techniques ............................................................................ 69
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Acknowledgements
First, I would like to thank all those students who sent me their chess questions via e-
mail, comments on my website, etc. This course was created based on your queries.
I would like to thank IM Asaf Givon and Aggelos Kesaris for their great help with the
course development.
I appreciate Olga Carreño’s effort in polishing the texts of the course.
On top of that, let me thank the whole Remote Chess Academy team. They have made
a valuable contribution to the creation of this course. Also, they are awesome people!
 Thank you!
Finally, all of my work is only possible due to the inspiration and support of my wife
and family. Thank you for this!
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Lesson 1 – How to evaluate an endgame
This is the starting point of our course about understanding better practical endgames.
I think it would be good to start with testing your abilities in evaluating an endgame.
So I would now give you eight positions from different type of endgames and from
different level of players and different eras of chess.
Later you can compare your evaluation with mine and you can also see the process
that I came to understand about evaluating endgame positions and you can also
compare the process.
POS-1
This is the first position – is White better or Black better or is it equal? Basically, in
chess we evaluate positions from slightly better to one side to decisive advantage to
one side. Of course, the position could be equal – so what is your evaluation?
White, first of all, controls the only open file in the position. So his rook is definitely
more active than his opponent’s rook. The c5-knight is also a very nice piece – it’s
putting pressure on the b7-pawn and thus forcing Black rook to support the pawn.
Therefore, White’s knight is superior to Black’s. This is also an advantage.
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What else can we see? We see that White has 3 vs 2 pawns on the kingside, so later
White may start pushing his pawns forward and he may have a chance for a passed
pawn on the kingside. I cannot say the same for Black just because he has 4 pawns on
the queenside. As you can see he has no way to push his pawns, because all of them
are either blocked or just cannot move. So White also has the advantage from
structural point of view.
Now let’s take a look at the final important aspect – the king position. Both of them
are in the corner, but I still prefer White king because he has a more clear route to
reach the center, whereas for Black it would take much more time to reach an active
square. In the endgame, this is an important aspect. So I would conclude that White
has big advantage, it might not be decisive but it is definitely a substantial advantage.
So if you got that right, congratulations! 
POS-2
How would you evaluate this position?
• The material is equal, but White’s queen is centralized and very active, while
the Black queen is a bit passive on the last rank. So White is better in activity
of queen – an advantage.
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• Also, Black has two isolated pawns, while White has only one which is also
adequately protected by his own queen. So White has less
weaknesses/problems which means, White is better from structural point of
view as well.
• King position – both kings are not very centralised but I would slightly prefer
White’s king just because I believe that White king can reach the center much
quicker than Black can.
So my evaluation is –White is better, but not extremely significant advantage because

Black might have some counterplay, but definitely his chances of winning are better.
POS-3
Here we see a completely different scenario – a pawn endgame. In the pawn endgame,
there are no pieces. So how would you evaluate?
It’s about the king activity and pawn structure. The material is equal but White has 4
vs 3 pawns on the kingside, while Black although has 4 pawns on the queenside, but
he has the doubled pawns. Which means Black would find it much harder to create a
passed pawn on the queenside… Perhaps, even impossible.
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Since White can eventually create passed pawn on the kingside with moves like f4
and e5 at some point or maybe even other breaks. So White is probably in a winning
position as he is essentially a pawn up, while Black can just not do the same thing.
POS-4
• White has two rooks lined up against the d6-pawn, so we might say that his
rooks are slightly more active even though the pawn is really quite adequately
protected by Black’s rook and the king. Also at any time he can push his pawn
to d5 and get rid of his weakness.
• Pawn structure – Black has a very long pawn island (c5-h6) and an isolated
pawn on a5. White has two pawn islands, but they are much smaller. I can say
that Black can maybe at some point exchange his weak pawn for one of
White’s pawns on the queenside and he will be left with a longer pawn chain
which is healthier.
• Also his king is slightly more centralized than White’s.
So Black is slightly better. Of course, it requires a lot more work to win such an
endgame as Black.
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POS-5
It’s relatively easy to evaluate this position. We can see that Black has an extremely
bad bishop on b7 which is essentially almost a dead piece. Black’s rooks also don’t
have good particular open file(s). Black has a weak pawn on a7, a backward pawn on
g6. The pawn can be attacked by a rook from g3.
So I would say that White is much better (maybe even winning), also he has a
protected passed pawn on e5. Also, almost all Black pawns are on light-squares,
which means White bishop can put pressure on them later.
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POS-6
This is a bit complicated endgame – how would you evaluate this position?
• The position is closed, but Black has an open file (h-file) and the h3-pawn can
be a target for attack. Black also has a potential pawn break on the queenside
with a4 and try to get another open file for his rook(s).
• Whereas I cannot really imagine how White can create counterplay because
the h4-pawnbreak is deprived and he can never push c5 and even a3 without
damaging his position. Also his bishop is very bad because all White pawns
are on light-squares. So the bishop’s activity is very much limited, while the
Black’s bishop has more potential.
• Also Black’s king has a better chance of reaching a better square than White.
So I would say that it’s better position for Black.
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POS-7
It’s a game of Anish Giri. Here it’s very symmetrical and many say that it’s always
drawish or equal, but this is actually not the case. White has a couple of advantages:
• First, he is controlling the only open file. His rooks are more active.
• His queen is more centralized than Black’s queen.
• White has some space advantage. He has the advanced d5-pawn, perhaps at
some point he can also try to push his pawns on the queenside and adding the
fact that Black king is on b8, he also might have some attacking chances.
So White is definitely better, but not winning as it’s still difficult to win.
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POS-8
Many would assume that this position is drawish or equal, but that’s not the case.
• Black has a passed pawn on e4, which makes the king on e3 kind of passive
because he always will have to stop that pawn.
• The position is rather closed – so neither side has good open files to operate
on, but Black has potential pawn breaks. One of them can be to push his pawn
to h5 and open the h-file for his rook.
• Or alternatively, he can push pawns on the queenside and create some

weaknesses in White’s position and eventually he would crawl with his rooks
and penetrate into White’s position.
So Black has a significant advantage, perhaps winning in the longer run as White is
deprived of counterplay.
If you got many of the above evaluations right, congratulations!  I hope this course
will enrich your skills.
Now let’s take a look back at the first position and see how White improved his
position and won the game.
10 | P a g e
Akesson, Ralf (2510) - Gausel, Einar (2540) [C45]
Politikenzt, 17.09.1998
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Qf6 5.Be3 Bc5 6.c3 Nge7 7.Bc4 Ne5 8.Be2 0–0
9.0–0 Qg6 10.Nd2 d6 11.Bh5 Qf6 12.Kh1 Qh4 13.f4 Bg4 14.Bxg4 Nxg4 15.Bg1 f5
16.N2f3 Qh5 17.exf5 Nxf5 18.Nxf5 Qxf5 19.Qb3+ Kh8 20.Bxc5 Qxc5 21.Nd4 Qb6
22.Rae1 Qxb3 23.axb3 Rf7 24.b4 a6 25.g3 Nf6 26.Nb3 d5 27.Re5 Re8 28.Nc5 c6
29.Rxe8+ Nxe8 30.Re1 Nf6
31.Re6 getting his rook to slightly more active position. 32…Kg8 trying to get his
king closer to the center. White does the same. 32.Kg2 h5 33.Kf3 Rc7
We see that one of the Black’s major problems is that he cannot exchange the rooks at
any point because then his b7-pawn would be hanging. So it makes his task of
defending himself quite difficult. 34.h3trying to push his pawns on the kingside
because eventually he want to create a passed pawn. 33…Kf7 35.f5 Nd7
11 | P a g e
Black tries to exchange the knights. Here is an interesting moment. White can retreat
his knight, but he decided to allow Black to exchange the knight and just improve his
king’s position trying to capture the h5-pawn, taking advantage of Black’s weak h5-
pawn.
36.Kf4 Nf6 realizing that he cannot really exchange the knight on c5. 37.g4 hxg4
38.hxg4 White’s pawns are extremely powerful – they can move forward very freely.
At this point, Black is in a very difficult position, so he tried playing a desperate move
sacrificing his pawn in order to place his knight on d5.
38…d4 But White played a very nice move. He didn’t want to allow Black any kind
of counterplay so he just played 39.c4 controlling the d5-square. 39….b6 an
understandable move. Black is under a lot of suffering so he is ready to give up the
pawn on a6, in order to get some counterplay after Ra7.
But White didn’t accept the sacrifice, and played a very calm move 40.Nd3 it doesn’t
give Black any kind of counterplay as the knight is heading towards e5. Black played
40…Nd7 41.Rd6 Black already loses material. 42…Ke7 42.Rxd4 White is now a
pawn up and also preserving good center control. White eventually converted his
advantage into a full point. 42..c5 43.bxc5 Nxc5 44.Ne5 Nb3 45.Rd3 Na5 46.b3 b5
47.cxb5 axb5 48.Kg5 Nb7 49.Kg6 Kf8 50.g5 b4 51.f6 gxf6 1–0
Conclusions
1. Piece activity (including king activity)
2. Pawn structure
3. Weaknesses
12 | P a g e
Lesson 2 – The principle of two weaknesses (karpovs classics)
Hello to the listeners of this course. This is the International Master Asaf Givon and
this will be the Lesson 2 in this course about practical endgames. This lesson will be
dedicated to the principle of two weaknesses. So, what is this principle?
In a very theoretical point of view, the principle of two weaknesses says that in chess,
usually, when your opponent has only one weakness, he would be able to defend it
with his pieces. But, once he has two weaknesses, it will be much more difficult for
him to defend both of those weaknesses; his forces would have to be divided between
the two weaknesses –or the two fronts. So, to illustrate this point or this principle, I
want to present here 2 games.
The first one is a very classical game between Viktor Korchnoi with the white pieces
versus the master of endgames, Anatoly Karpov, one of the former world champions.
The second one, surprisingly enough, will be a game of Karpov’s biggest rival, Mr.
Garry Kasparov.
Viktor Korchnoi - Anatoly Karpov [D53]

Karpov - Korchnoi World Championship Re Merano ITA (9), 24.10.1981
1.c4 e6 2.Nc3 d5 3.d4 Be7 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bh4 0–0 7.Rc1 dxc4 8.e3 c5
9.Bxc4 cxd4 10.exd4 Nc6 11.0–0 Nh5 12.Bxe7 Nxe7 13.Bb3 Nf6 14.Ne5 Bd7
15.Qe2 Rc8 16.Ne4 Nxe4 17.Qxe4 Bc6 18.Nxc6 Rxc6 19.Rc3 Qd6 20.g3 Rd8
21.Rd1 Rb6 22.Qe1 Qd7 23.Rcd3 Rd6 24.Qe4 Qc6 25.Qf4 Nd5 26.Qd2 Qb6
27.Bxd5 Rxd5
13 | P a g e
White to play
So, in this position, we can see equal material, but it would be wrong to assess the
position as equal in a whole. We can see that Black has no weaknesses, while White
has this isolated and weak pawn on the d4-square. This pawn is also very easily
attacked by the black pieces because it is placed on an open file. Now, we see that, in
this position, each one of Black’s pieces is aiming at the d4-pawn, while each one of
White’s pieces is defending the pawn. This means that White is on the passive and
defensive side.
But, once again, the question is how to proceed or break through from this position
because, as I said in the beginning, usually one weakness is not enough to win the
game. So, let’s see how the game proceeded.
Korchnoi played 28.Rb3. He decided not to wait passively because if he plays a

random move, for example Kg2, then Black might break through in the center with a
move like e5, using the fact that White is pinned against the rook on d3 –White
cannot really take the pawn on e5– and this means that the pawn on d4 is going to fall.
So, Korchnoi was seeking for active counterplay.
28…Qc6 29.Qc3. Of course, it would be a big mistake for Black to exchange the
queens in this scenario because then White can take with the pawn. Now the pawn is
protecting its fellow pawn on d4 and it will be significantly more difficult for Black to
14 | P a g e
break through in this position. So, Karpov made the right move, 29…Qd7. Once
again we see that Black puts a lot of pressure against the pawn on d4: the threat is
pawn to e5 to take the pawn on d4. So, unfortunately, in this position, Victor
Korchnoi was forced to move 30.f4, which he really didn’t want to do.
Now, as you can see, the f4 move has slightly compromised the king’s position on g1.
Suddenly, this diagonal (g1-b6) is opened up and also the second row is weakened. In
general, we can see that White’s king position is compromised and this might be a
clue for us of what our second weakness is going to be –or second front of the game.
Now it would be wrong for Black to capture on d4 because White would just
exchange all of the pieces and would eventually recapture the pawn on b7. We
definitely don’t want to exchange White’s weak pawn for our good pawn on b7.
Therefore, Karpov simply played 30…b6, safeguarding his pawn.
Now the threat is Rxd4. White was forced to play the slightly awkward move,
31.Rb4, in order to defend his pawn on d4. And now, once again, we have a scenario
in which we can see all of White’s pieces protecting his pawn and Black’s pieces are
defending the pawn. So, how to proceed?
Karpov found a very nice resource here: he played pawn to 31…b5, using the slightly
awkward position of the rook on b4; and is now threatening to play his pawn to a5, to
force the rook to retreat to b3 and then to proceed to capture the pawn on d4. This is
why White was forced to create some counterplay: Korchnoi played pawn to a4,
32.a4 bxa4 33.Qa3. Now White is ready to recapture the pawn on a4 and Black
cannot really do anything about it. 33...a5 34.Rxa4
Now Karpov uses the principle of two weaknesses. He’s starting to see that White’s
king position is compromised. He also sees that White’s pieces are far away from the
defense of his king, so he starts to look at White’s king and to ask himself whether he
can exploit this weakness. So, he found a very nice resource here: he played
34…Qb5, threatening the penetration of the queen onto the e2-square, where it will
create enormous pressure on White’s king. White was forced to play 35.Rd2 to
protect himself from this penetration. And now, a very important move came. Once
again, in the first step, we are forcing White to a passive position, which we did. We
can see that White’s pieces are very passively defending the pawn on d4. Then,
Karpov forced a weakening of White’s king position. And, now, he proceeds to step
#3, which is to exploit the second front that opened up: the attack on the king on g1.
So, he played a brilliant move, 35…e5: the pawn breaking the center, trying to open
up even more lines against the king on g1.
15 | P a g e
Now, White is forced to take on e5, 36.fxe5. Using the pin on the d-file, Black plays
36…Rxe5, threatening with the very strong Re1, which is already a checkmating
attack. If White took the rook on e5, Black would take the rook on d2. And, even
though this is an equal material position with very few pieces on the board, White is
completely hopeless against Black’s attack, his king is too weak and White’s pieces
are too far away. For example, Black is threatening Qe2, with all kinds of checkmate
threats. So, this is why, in this position, White preferred to play 37.Qa1 in order to
protect himself from the threat of rook to e1.
And now a very critical position came in the game. Black already achieved a lot of
things: he has created a second front, he has now some attacking edges against the
white king, but now he needs to find a concrete idea of how to exploit the weakness of
White’s king. I really suggest you to stop the video at this point and try to find
Black’s next move here, which was a really brilliant idea.
So, in this position, Black played a brilliant move, 37…Qe8. Now, I really like this
move because, usually, when we see games of very strong players, or very famous
games, the winning moves are normally very complicated sacrifices or very strong
attacking moves. But here we see a move which is a retreat: the queen retreats from
its allegedly very active position on b5 to e8. But, from e8 it does two things: it still
creates pressure against the rook on a4, but it also threatens rook to e1, with a very
strong attack. So, White didn’t really have many options, he had to capture the rook
on e5 and Black recaptured the rook on d2: 38.dxe5 Rxd2.
Now Black does this thing which is called transformation of advantages. Before that,
he had an advantage from a structural point of view, so he put a lot of pressure against
the pawn on d4. But now he transforms his advantage into a direct attack against
White’s weakened king. And, please pay attention to the fact that White’s pieces are
extremely far away from the action: they cannot really help White’s king too much. I
think, essentially, White is lost here. But let’s see the rest of the game.
Korchnoi took on a5: 39.Rxa5. The pawn on a5 is not really an important pawn to
lose. Karpov played 39…Qc6, threatening checkmate on g2. 40.Ra8+Kh7
41.Qb1+g6. At this point, White ran out of checks, and he had to deal once again with
this checkmating threat on g2. Then, he played 42.Qf1 and this is actually a small
trap. Now, if Black tries to capture the rook on a8, which is unprotected, White will
play Qxf7+, followed by a perpetual check against the black king. This is something,
of course, to be aware of.
16 | P a g e
But, Karpov found a very nice sequence of moves, which lead to his win. You might
once again stop the video and try to find those moves by yourself.
So, it was played 42…Qc5+43.Kh1 and then 43…Qd5+. We call it a ladder

technique. Basically, it runs his queen from c6 to the d5-square, but gaining a tempo
with checks. At this point, Korchnoi resigned the game because, after Kg1, Black did
the move Rd1, attacking the queen and king. This is why Korchnoi decided that he
had enough.
What we saw essentially in this game is the three steps: Creating or exploiting a
weakness, which was the pawn on d4. So, first of all, Karpov forced his opponent to
take a passive position. Then, he proceeded to create a second front, a second
weakness, which was helped by f4, and then the king was compromised. And, in the
step #3, he opened up the second front. Because White’s pieces were so passive and
so much uncoordinated, it was extremely difficult for him to hold up these two
weaknesses.
Let’s see the next example. We have a game with no other than Garry Kasparov. We
will start seeing the game from the 23th move. His opponent was Étienne Bacrot, one
of the French leading chess players, rated 2700.
Kasparov, Garry (2851) - Bacrot, Etienne (2594) [C45]

Sarajevo Bosnia 30th Sarajevo (1), 17.05.2000
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.e5 Qe7 7.Qe2 Nd5 8.c4
Ba6 9.b3 g6 10.f4 Qb4+ 11.Bd2 Qb6 12.Qe4 f5 13.Qf3 Qd4 14.Nc3 Nxc3 15.Bxc3
Bb4 16.Rc1 Bxc3+ 17.Rxc3 0–0–0 18.c5 Bb7 19.Qe3 Qxe3+ 20.Rxe3 d6 21.Bc4
Kd7 22.h4 d5 23.Bd3
At this point, White was threatening to play h5, creating some weaknesses in Black’s
position. Bacrot decided not to allow White to advance his pawn, so he played
23…h5.
17 | P a g e
White to play
If we remember the last game with Karpov, the first step that he did was to create a
weakness. Here, the pawn on g6 is now a weakened backward pawn. The second step
was to force Black into passivity; we want to try to put Black’s pieces on passive
squares in order to defend this weakness. White played 24.Rg3, simply attacking the
pawn on g6. Black played 24…Rh6.
Now, once again, White is facing a similar kind of problem. Black has only one
weakness at the moment, which he can attack. If he tried to attack this pawn right
now, Black would just defend it with all of his pieces, perhaps with the other rook,
and also, if he needed, with the king. It would be difficult to proceed.
At this point, Kasparov, who had also a very good knowledge about the classics –he
obviously knew the principle of two weaknesses–, was searching the board for a
second weakness. You might also stop the video and think a bit. Which second
weakness in Black’s camp can we try to exploit as White?
18 | P a g e
So, where can we have another weakness? It’s in this pawn on a7, which is also an
isolated pawn. So, how can we attack this pawn? At the first step, Kasparov made a
move which is both a prophylactic and an attacking move. He played a brilliant move,
25.b4. First of all, he’s clearing up the third rank to eventually come and attack this
pawn on a7 –also we can do it with the other rook. But even more importantly, the b4-
move stops Black from advancing to a5: For example, if White started with a move
like Kd2, then Black could play a5 and it would be more difficult for White to attack
the pawn on a5 because there’s no rook lift anymore. After b4, Black is completely
passive. Take a look at this very bad bishop on b7, which looks like what we call a big
pawn –it’s not considered a real bishop; it has no scope and no future. Black played
25…Ke6.
Now, Kasparov moved to the second step, finding the second weakness and putting
pressure against it; so, he maneuvered his other rook to a3: 26.Kd2 Ra8 27.Rb1 a6
28.Rb3 Kf7 29.Ra3.
Once again, we have a similar scenario: two weaknesses. We have one weakness on
a6 and the other one on g6. So, as we know from the previous game, the passive side
can usually hold one weakness, but he cannot hold two weaknesses. The question,
once again, is: How to proceed as White? How to exploit these two weaknesses? So,
let’s see Kasparov’s technique in this game. Black played 29…Rhh8.
Now, before proceeding to the final breakthrough, first of all, Kasparov did a very
professional thing: he strengthened his position to the maximum. Which white pieces
can he improve? First of all, he decided to put his rook on the g5-square, 30.Rg5. The
rook is very nice here, it’s protected and it puts pressure against all Black’s pawns.
Black is once again very passive. 30…Rh6 He has to stand in place. So, which pieces
can we improve further? The king is not fully centralized, so Kasparov played 31.Kc3
and then, eventually played Kd4: 31…Rb8 32.Ra5 Ra8 33.Kd4. So, this is also a
principle for you to remember, which is relevant in many endgames, not only in
endgames with the principle of two weaknesses: When you are in full control of the
game, don’t rush, try to improve your position to the maximum before you proceed to
the final actions.
19 | P a g e
33…Rhh8 Once again, Black stood in place. An interesting position happened. It
seems that White reached a sort of a maximum position. His king is fully centralized
and both of his rooks are looking at these Black’s weak squares. But now we can see
the beauty of the principle of two weaknesses. White’s pieces are much more active
and maneuverable. So, what this means is that White can switch his rook’s positions
as he wishes. Kasparov repeated the moves once probably to just gain some time:
34.Bc2 Rab8 35.Bd3 Ra8. Now he played 36.Be2.
By the way, notice that one of the things that helps White a lot is that all of Black’s
pawns are fixed on light squares, which means that his bishop is very much active
attacking Black’s weaknesses. Black here made a very critical mistake, but it’s very
hard to blame him because his position is already very difficult. He played his rook
from h to b8, 36…Rhb8.
First of all, let’s see what could have happened if he had not blundered. The best
move was probably Rhg8, trying to bolster the defense of the pawn on g6. But, here it
comes, once again, the beauty of White’s position. His rooks are much more
maneuverable. So, now, for example, once Black strengthens the pawn on g6, he can
switch to attack the pawn on a6. So, he can now play Rg3, with the idea of swinging
the rook to the a3-square, where Black cannot really defend the pawn on a6. If Black
then tries to defend the pawn on a6 with Ra7, with the idea of answering Ra3 with
Ra8; here actually, White has a very brilliant tactic which wins the game immediately.
You might want to stop the video and try to find it for yourself. Here, if you found the
move, Bxh5, congratulations! It’s really not surprising that with such active white
pieces and such passive Black’s positions, White would find a breakthrough, so if he
plays gxh5, then e6+. If Black plays Kf8, the pawn will smash forward with e7; and
eventually, Black will have to give up his rook on g8 or to allow the pawn to queen.
So, after Black’s 36…Rhb8, he thought that he could defend his pawn on a6. But
now, Garry with brilliance switched to the other pawn on g6, so instead of Rg3, he
played 37.Ra3. Once again, highlighting White’s very maneuverable and much more
flexible pieces; now the other rook can swing to the g3-square, and the pawn on g6 is
undefendable. Black played 37…Rh8 38.Rag3. And, after 38…Rg8, which was
Black’s last mistake, White played 39.Bxh5, which was also the last move of the
game because if the black rook captures on h5, here comes the same type of tactics as
we saw before: Rxh5, gxh5 and e6 –once again, the king cannot hold both the pawn
and his rook on g8. The same applies if Black takes with the pawn, White can take on
g8 and then proceed with e6, which is practically the same tactics. So, after Bxh5,
20 | P a g e
Black resigned. Once again, we saw a beautiful and very clean usage of the principle
of two weaknesses.
So, I hope this lesson was helpful for you. Now, we proceed to the next lesson. I’ll see
you there. Bye, bye!
Conclusions
1. Create a weakness for your opponent
2. Force him to defend his weakness passively
3. Create a second front or second weakness in order to divide the enemy forces. He
cannot hold 2 weaknesses at once.
21 | P a g e
Lesson 3 – Pawn structure (weaknesses)
Hello everyone. This is lesson #3 of the course on “Practical Endgames”. In this

lesson we are going to talk about pawn structure, more specifically pawn weaknesses.
In the endgame, one of the most important aspects, maybe besides piece’s activity, is
the pawn structure –which side has better or weaker pawns. So, the position in front
of you is taken from one of my own games, which I consider actually to be one of my
best games ever. This is because, in this game, I managed to squeeze a slight
advantage and converted it into a very convincing victory later on from this position.
First of all, let’s take a look at the initial position; it is move #31.
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0–0 Nxe4 6.d4 b5 7.Bb3 d5 8.dxe5 Be6
9.Nbd2 Nc5 10.c3 Be7 11.Bc2 d4 12.Nb3 d3 13.Nxc5 dxc2 14.Qxd8+ Rxd8
15.Nxe6 fxe6 16.Be3 Rd5 17.c4 bxc4 18.Rac1 Nxe5 19.Nxe5 Rxe5 20.Rxc2 Re4
21.Rfc1 Kd7 22.Rxc4 Rxc4 23.Rxc4 Rb8 24.Bd4 Bf6 25.b3 Rb5 26.Be3 Ra5
27.Rc2 Bg5 28.Bc5 Rb5 29.Kf1 Bf4 30.Ke2 Bd6 31.Be3
Black to play
22 | P a g e
You can see that White is having fewer pawn islands. He has these three connected
pawns: f, g, h. This is one island, and the other island is the one formed by the pawns
on b3 and a2. So, there are two islands, no isolated pawns. It’s not the same with
Black. Black has one weak isolated pawn on a6, one on c7, one on e6 and these two
pawns which are connected together on g7 and h7. So, Black has essentially four
pawn islands versus White’s two pawn islands.
In this position, first of all, just a quick note. Black can take the pawn on h2, but, after
g3 –this is a very typical mistake–, the bishop is now caged on h2 and it will
eventually be lost by the white king, for example Kf3-Kg2.
In the initial position, it’s Black to move, and he made a move which I consider to be
a mistake. He moved pawn to e5, 31...e5. Why is this a mistake? Well, look at the
color of the pawn on e5. It’s now fixed on a dark square, which makes it weaker than
it was before because White possesses the dark-squared bishop. You will see later on
in the game that White will be able to pick up this pawn after some maneuvering,
which is a bit surprising at this point because it’s protected twice. Another bad thing
about the e5-move is that Black is closing this diagonal (d6-h2) for the bishop and
also closing up this line (5th rank) for the rook.
Let’s see how the game proceeded. Now, let’s try to find a plan for White because he
is having some small advantage in the pawn structure. How to proceed? First of all,
White should aim to create as many weaknesses in Black’s position as possible. So,
where can he attack Black’s weaknesses? We know there’s a weakness here, in a6,
which is not protected and there are these two pawns on the kingside, g7 and h7,
which are far away from all of the other black pieces and they are not protected. So,
how can we combine the pressure on the pawn on a6 and the pawns on the kingside?
32.Rc4. That’s a very nice move because now White is flexible with his rook. He can
move both in the queenside and in the kingside. Now Black played 32…Ra5. That
was a good move, I believe, because it forced White to move his pawn from a2 to a4,
33.a4. We can claim that White also created a little weakness for himself, the pawn on
b3. The difference is that it’s really difficult to get the pawn on b3. Black will find it
very hard to attack it because his rook is very awkwardly placed –it would rather be
somewhere on b8 where it could pressure against this pawn.
23 | P a g e
So, the black rook now came back to d5, 33…Rd5. And White goes to the second
part of his plan. I want to create more weaknesses in Black’s position because, at the
moment, all of Black’s pawns are quite safe: the pawn on a6 cannot be attacked; his
pawns on c7 and e5 are too firmly defended. So, I played 34.Rh4. What is my plan? I
want his pawns to move forward. If his pawns moved forward, it would be easier for
me to attack them, because they would be closer to my camp. So, Black was forced to
play 34…h6. Now 35.Rg4 came. You will see that Black’s kingside pawns are now
fixed on dark squares (g7 and h6), as well as the pawns on e5 and c7. Practically, all
of his pawns are fixed on dark squares and this means that his bishop, on d6, will
potentially have a lot of jobs –it will have to protect all of those pawns and eventually
it will be overloaded.
Black played 35…Bf8. Notice that if Black played 35…g5, this is exactly what White
wanted. He wanted to provoke weaknesses. Now White can play 36.h4 and the pawns
on the kingside will collapse. For example, if Black takes on h4, White can take on h4
and the pawn on h6 will be simply lost.
He played 35…Bf8, trying to maintain his pawn on g7, which is a good strategy.
When you are on the defensive side –this is a good tip by the way–, try not to move
the pawns on your weaker side, because the farther away you move your pawns, the
easier it becomes for your opponent to attack them. So, for Black, it is really optimal
to keep this pawn on g7.
Now, please take a notice at White’s next move. Black’s pawns are now on dark
squares, so what White really wants to do is to fix them on the dark squares as much
as he can. What does he play? 36.h4. That’s a very nice resource. White now wants to
put his pawn on h5 and, in this way, the pawns on h6 and g7 would be blocked
forever –they would not have the opportunity to move at all.
Black played 36…Kc6. His plan is to move the rook and then place his king on the
active d5-square. That’s why White played this nice prophylactic move, 37.Rc4+,
forcing the king to move backwards, 37…Kd7; and now he can go back to the
original plan of h5, 38.h5. We can see that those pawns on the kingside can never
move forward. Black is now in a very passive position. We can see that it is very
difficult to find an active spot for his rook because he would like to attack the pawn
on b3, but White’s king is doing the very good job of taking away all of its potential
active squares.
Black played 38…Be7, just standing in place. This is something we already know
from previous videos. When we are in a good dominant position, we should not hurry.
24 | P a g e
This is a very important principle in the endgame. You take your time, as much as you
need, to improve your position to the very end. Let’s see which improvements we can
make in our position, before we proceed to think about our final breakthrough or our
final winning plan.
First of all, we would like to improve White’s king position. It’s not very happy on
e2, maybe it would like to be on e4, where it would be even more active, more
centralized. Also, we would like to do everything to improve our pawn structure a bit.
This is why White played 39.g4 to support his pawn on h5. Now all of his pawns are
protected; there are no weaknesses. Black played 39…Bd6. He is standing in place,
he doesn’t have too much of a plan.
Now, I also improved this position on the queenside slightly, with 40.b4. This is a
nice move, aiming to fix the pawn on a6, so it cannot move to a5 and is forced to be
weak and unprotected on a6. Black, once again, stands in place, 40…Be7.
Once again, which piece can we improve? The king –White played 41.Kf3. After
41…Bd642.Ke4, White has reached a maximum of activity. His king is optimally
placed, attacking the rook, forcing the move 42…Ke6. This is a very, very interesting
moment in the game. White has got a lot of achievements: He fixed his opponent’s
pawns on dark squares. He created many weaknesses for Black. He centralized his
king. His bishop is of the right color (dark-squared), which enables him to attack
dark-squared pawns in the future. But it’s very difficult to improve this position
because it seems like White has reached a maximum of activity. At this point, usually
this is a very critical moment, when you reach your maximum activity, because you
will either have a very convincing tactics or a very convincing pawn break; or what
happened in this game.
I remember looking at this position and, after a while, I realized that Black had only
one active move. What would be Black’s next move, in your opinion? You can stop
the video and think about it.
Black’s next move most certainly would be Rd1, trying to activate his rook because
he just doesn’t have any other legal moves in which he doesn’t lose. His bishop
cannot really move because he has to protect the pawn on c7. None of his pawns can
really move. The king has to protect the rook on d5. Black is almost out of legal
moves. And, if the only active move he can make is Rd1, I said to myself, well, what
if I just play Rc1?
25 | P a g e
43.Rc1 and here comes a very important and frequent principle of the endgame: The
zugzwang. A position in which each move you make would be bad for you. This is
precisely this position. Black has no useful moves to make, so he decided to go for the
least bad move, to take the pawn on b4, 43…Bxb4. But this is exactly what White
wanted. Now the rook is coming into action, 44.Rxc7. You can see, in this position,
how much of a significant weakness the pawn on g7 is. Black was forced to play a
very passive move, 44…Bf8.
Now, with White’s rook being so active, this is already an easy job. White has many
winning continuations here, but I chose a very straightforward way to win. So,
45.Rc6+, Black has to block with the rook in order not to lose the pawn on a6,
45…Rd646.Rc8. The bishop is under attack, 46…Be7 is forced. 47.Bc5 and now
Black plays 47…Rd7, which I believe, was his last mistake in this game, because
now Black is using a very typical and acceptable method of simplification. White
would be very happy to get a pawn endgame in which he could exploit his material
advantage very easily. White plays 48.Re8 and this move actually forces Black to
resign because after, for example, the king moves, 48…Kf7, White just exchanges all
of the pieces, 49.Rxe7 Rxe7 50.Bxe7 Kxe7, and takes on e5, 51.Kxe5. And with an
extra pawn in the endgame, the three-versus-two advantage, White should be winning
very easily.
In this game, we see a very good example of how to exploit the pawn weaknesses in
the opponent’s position. So, what do we learn from this example? Don’t fix your
pawns on the squares of your bishops because we saw that this pawn on e5, by the
way, was eventually taken away. We also saw that you should not move your pawns
on the same side that you are weak, the weaker side. So, 35…g5 would be wrong if
White played 36.h4. We also learn more general things. Don’t rush: take your time to
improve your positions to the maximum that you need.
Conclusions:
1. Try to place your pawns in opposition to your bishop when you are in the stronger
side.
2. Don’t fix your own pawns on the same color as the opponent’s bishop; try to keep
your weak pawns as less advanced as possible.
3. One pawn island is better than multiple pawn islands.
4. Exchange the active defenders of your opponent’s weak pawns; leave him with
passive defenders.
26 | P a g e
Lesson 4 – Space advantage
In this lesson we are going to see some position from two games. One is a very
classical game between Emanuel Lasker and José Raúl Capablanca, two former world
champions, in 1914. The second is from a more recent game between Anish Giri with
the white pieces and Johan Sebastian Christiansen.
Lasker, Emanuel - Capablanca, José Raúl [C68]

St Petersburg final St Petersburg (7), 18.05.1914
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.d4 exd4 6.Qxd4 Qxd4 7.Nxd4 Bd6
8.Nc3 Ne7 9.0–0 0–0 10.f4 Re8 11.Nb3 f6
White to play
27 | P a g e
In this position that I chose to show, we are just out of the opening, on the move #12.
The queens have been exchanged before, but many pieces are still on the board. In
this position, we see that White has a slight space advantage in the center. It means
that his pawns are slightly more advanced than Black’s pawns and this gives his
pieces more freedom than the black ones. On the other hand, we see that Black has the
two-bishop advantage, which could also be a very handy advantage to have in an
open-type position. In this position, I want you to think: How can Mr. Lasker –the
former world champion– try to use his space advantage to his own good? What would
you play here as White?
Here, Lasker played a very interesting move, which, in my view, is a bit of a

controversial decision; he played 12.f5. You see that now this f5-pawn does the very
good job of limiting the movement of the c8-bishop; now this bishop is caged, it
cannot move. Also, the g6-square is forbidden for the black knight. We see that f5, in
a way, is a limitation of Black’s activity; and this is one of the things that we try to do
when we possess a space advantage. We try to limit our opponent’s options with our
pawns because, when we have more advanced pawns, we can deprive our opponent
from having certain squares, lines, files or diagonals. f5 is a very interesting move,
even though it has one or two drawbacks: One of them is that the d6-bishop is looking
good on this diagonal (d6-h2) and the other one is that the e5-square was given to
Black.
Let’s see how this game was developed. Capablanca played 12…b6 here. He realized
that his c8-bishop would not be able to develop itself on this diagonal (c8-f5), so he
perhaps tried to put it on b7. White played 13.Bf4, a very good move, in my opinion,
because White has to defuse Black’s strong d6-bishop. Also, Black possesses the two-
bishop advantage, so it makes sense to exchange one pair of bishops. Black played
13…Bb7. Here it came an interesting decision; White decided to make a bit of a
counter-intuitive move –in a way– he took on d6, 14.Bxd6 cxd6. Some of you might
think this is a bit strange because it improved Black’s pawn structure; now it no
longer has doubled pawns, as it was before. But, you might consider that this pawn on
d6 is a backward pawn, which, later on, can be pressured by rooks on the d-file –
White has a very clear target to attack here.
In this position, it’s White to move. Once again, I invite you to try to find a good plan
here for White. Try to mainly concentrate on the space advantage and how to use it to
your own advantage. As we already know, White definitively has space advantage,
mainly on the center, slightly on the kingside. One more thing that you can do with
such an advanced pawn on f5 is to penetrate your opponent’s camp. White has a good
possession on the e6-square, which is not protected by any of Black’s pawns; so,
28 | P a g e
White took advantage immediately. He played 15.Nd4, heading towards e6 –a very
good square for the knight. Then 15…Rad816.Ne6 Rd7. We see that this e6-knight is
an extremely annoying piece for Black to face. It’s also a very difficult piece to get rid
of –there are no pieces which can exchange it in the nearest future.
White played his rook on the open d-file, 17.Rad1, very logical, once again having
this pressure against the weakened d6-pawn. Black played 17…Nc8. Now I will give
you another small task. How would you improve White’s position? Which piece is not
working properly, that you can bring to a better square? This is, of course, not strictly
related to our topic of space advantage but, in general, it’s always a good idea to
improve your position. Especially in the endgame, when you have a few pieces on the
board, it’s extremely important to have all of your pieces active. White played here
18.Rf2, trying to activate his idle rook from f1, bringing it to the d2-square, creating a
nice battery on the d-file.
Black played 18…b5, trying to seize this space on the queenside, perhaps liberating
his very passive c8-knight to come into a more active square on b6 and, from there, to
c4. I think its final destination will be this square on e5. If you remember a couple of
moves ago, White played a move which allows Black to exploit this square. White
played 19.Rfd2, pinning the black knight to c8 because now the d6-pawn is under
pressure, so this means that the c8-knight cannot move. Black played 19…Rde7. Now
it’s also a very important moment. It’s White to move.
What would you play here as White to try to further limit Black’s possibilities? Once
again, remember our topic of space advantage. Of course, you are invited to stop the
video and try to think. The move –the move I really liked when I saw it– was 20.b4.
In one move, White is completely ruling out all of Black’s possibilities of moving his
own pawns on the queenside; thus avoiding his possible expansions on the queenside
and making the b7-bishop a very miserable piece, given that the c- and the a-pawns
cannot be pushed. So, the b7-bishop is doomed to passivity. Here we see a good
example of using the space advantage to limit your opponent’s pawn moves and thus
limiting his piece activity: The b7-bishop is now completely caged; the c8-knight is
also a very passive piece –passively defending the d6-pawn; Black’s rooks are not too
great either and are blocked by this beautiful e6-knight. I would conclude that, in this
position, White already possesses a winning advantage from a strategic point of view.
Let’s continue the game and see how Lasker is further strengthening his position, until
he finally takes advantage of his good position to take a full point home. Black played
20…Kf7, 21.a3 to protect the pawn on b4 –just in case. 21…Ba8, you see that it’s
quite difficult for Black to find any constructive plan. 22.Kf2, White brings his king
29 | P a g e
slightly closer to the center, to an extent. 22…Ra7, Black is trying to think about
some possibilities of counterplay on the queenside to give his pieces some space –
some activity–, but I believe it’s a bit too late; White has already achieved a lot of
strategic advantages and now he proceeds to the last stage of the game. Look at this
position, I want you to stop the video and try to find a plan for White to improve his
position and use, once again, his space advantage.
White here played a very nice move, 23.g4; so, after he seized space on the queenside
and also in the center, he is now proceeding to use a more active position to try to
seize all the space on the kingside too. After 23…h6 24.Rd3 a5 25.h4 axb4 26.axb4,
we see that now, with his pawns on the kingside, White has also some possibilities to
advance on the kingside and to open up some lines there. Let’s see how Lasker uses
his space advantage to eventually come up with a very strong attack.
Black played 26…Rae7; he didn’t find anything good to do on the a-file. Now, one
more sample of professionalism –I would say–: before proceeding with the final
execution of the plan of breaking with g5, what should we do first? We need to
improve our position to the fullest, to improve all of our pieces that can be improved.
Which one of White’s pieces can be improved in this position? The answer is the
king. Do you see that now? Once again, we use our space advantage –this far
advanced f5-pawn– to improve the king’s position. White can play 27.Kf3 Rg8 and
then 28.Kf4. That is a very nice outpost for the king on the f4-square. It’s only
possible because of White’s f5-pawn that White’s king has the opportunity to reach
such an advanced square.
28…g6 29.Rg3. White is ready with the break on g5, which will open up a lot of lines
against Black’s king and he would have a very strong attack. This is why Capablanca
here tried with 29…g5+, but this didn’t help him too much because after 30.Kf3 Nb6,
you see that Black is ready to sacrifice his d6-pawn just in order to try to get his
knight into an active square. But Lasker doesn’t even bother to take the d-pawn, he
just goes with the plan of opening up the h-file, 31.hxg5 hxg5 32.Rh3. We see that
now White’s rooks will have nice penetration squares on the kingside. After 32…Rd7
33.Kg3 Ke8 34.Rdh1 Bb7, we see that almost all of White’s pieces are optimally
active. Now, there are many ways to win as White, but I really want you to pay
attention to White’s next move. I even invite you to try to find it. Which one is
White’s only passive piece at the moment? What do you think?
The answer is the c3-knight. It’s not doing any good job at the moment. Look at
White’s brilliant next move, 35.e5 –a beautiful pawn sacrifice– trying to give White’s
knight a nice square to sit on –on e4– 35…dxe5 36.Ne4. This is a really very good
30 | P a g e
square, hitting the f6-pawn, getting ready to penetrate on c5 and this is really too
much for Black to handle. 36…Nd5 37.N6c5 Bc8. Black didn’t find anything better
than sacrificing his rook, 38.Nxd7 Bxd7, but after a couple of more moves, 39.Rh7
Rf8 40.Ra1, White also penetrated from the queenside and Black resigned in this
position in which he is completely being dominated by White’s pieces, 40…Kd8
41.Ra8+ Bc8 42.Nc5 1–0. It’s a really beautiful game –I liked it very much. And it’s
a very classical example of the usage of space advantage.
After such a game, let’s move to the next one. Here we have a more recent game from
2013, with Anish Giri with the white pieces, one of the strongest players in the world
today.
Giri, Anish (2722) - Christiansen, Johan Sebastian (2071) [C63]

Reykjavik op Reykjavik (1), 19.02.2013
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5 4.d3 fxe4 5.dxe4 Nf6 6.0–0 Bc5 7.Qd3 d6 8.Qc4 Qe7
9.Nc3 Bd7 10.Nd5 Nxd5 11.exd5 Nd4 12.Bxd7+ Qxd7 13.Nxd4 Bxd4 14.a4 a6
15.Be3 Bxe3 16.fxe3 0–0–0 17.Rf3 Rhf8 18.Raf1 Qe7 19.Qe4 g6 20.b3 Kb8
White to move
31 | P a g e
We see a position with only the heavy pieces on the board: the queen and the rooks.
Once again, this position is symmetrical; so, many people may think that this should
be just an easy draw. But, we see a couple of small advantages for White. He has a
slightly more centralized queen and he is in possession of the only open file, the f-file.
Our topic here is space advantage, thanks to White’s far advance pawn on d5, which
slightly limits Black’s movements. So, let’s see how Anish Giri increases his space
advantage in the next move and, eventually, using it, he won the game.
What would you play here as White? Stop the video and think. White played a very
nice move, 21.a5, fixing Black’s structure on the queenside; so, now he also grabs
more space there. The rook takes the rook, 21…Rxf3 22.Qxf3, the queen takes the
rook, of course, because we want to keep the control over the only open file. 22…Qg5
23.c4. We see that White is expanding on the queenside as much as he can because
there are no interferences from Black there. Black is completely passive in this
position; he plays 23…Re8. By the way, Black was much lower rated than White –he
was rated about 2100. So, it was a very classic example of a stronger, or more
experienced, player outplaying a less experienced player in the endgame.
White has improved his position on the queenside and, also, he now proceeds to
improve his position on the kingside. He plays a little move, h3 and then Kh2, 24.h3
Ka7 25.Kh2. This is a very nice touch of a Grand Master. He knows that, one day, he
would like to activate his king’s position, so he already puts it on a slightly more
advance position. Thus, eventually, if the queens get traded, he can activate his king.
Black plays 25…Qe7, trying to push the pawn to e4 perhaps, but Anish Giri didn’t let
him do so. He pushed his pawn to e4 first, 26.e4, which shows White having a huge
space advantage here. Almost all the board shows that White has more advanced
pawns: in the center and on the queenside. 26…Kb8, Black is getting in place –he
doesn’t have a very active counterplay.
Now, Giri proceeds with playing a very nice move, 27.Qf7, offering the exchange of
queens. This offer cannot be taken because the rook would be too active on the 7th
rank. So, Black decided to keep on staying in place, 27…Ka7. I really like Giri’s
patience in this game. He always tried to improve his position to the fullest, before
starting any action. Here, for example, can you grab more space? Yes. He played
28.b4, gaining even more space on the board. Black is once again standing passively,
28…Kb8. Can you grab more space in this position? What do you think? You might
stop the video and think.
Giri already had the answer: Yes! He played 29.c5 because if this pawn is taken,
White can simply take it back and the queen cannot take the pawn because the rook
32 | P a g e
will be hanging there; so Black played 29…Ka7. You see that Black is just standing
in place, waiting for his doom, in a way. 30.Qxe7 Rxe7 31.Rf6. Now the queens got
exchanged and the rook penetrated the 6th rank. The d6-pawn is under tremendous
pressure, 31…Rd7 is forced. Now, I let you figure out: What would be a good plan
for White here to finish Black off? What would be your plan?
Now, after the exchange of queens –if you remember–, White wanted to activate his
king via this route (g3-g4-g5-h6), 32.Kg3. This reminds us the chapter about the
king’s activity. Black played 32…Kb8, 33.Kg4 Kc8. Now Giri spotted the nice
opportunity of exchanging the rooks and going for the pawn endgame, 34.Rf8+ Rd8
35.Rxd8+ Kxd8 36.cxd6 cxd6 37.Kg5. His far more advanced king is closing the
issue very quickly. 37…Ke7 38.Kh6 Kf6 39.h4 1–0
Black resigned in this position, where the h7-pawn falls and the g6-pawn will
probably fall too. In a pawn endgame with one or two pawns down, there is really no
point to continue; so, Black resigns.
I hope you enjoy this lesson about space advantage. I especially like the first game. I
really advice you to go over this game again –Lasker against Capablanca. So, I hope
you enjoy this. I see you in the next lessons. Bye, bye.
Conclusions
1. Use your space advantage to increase your piece activity and to limit your
opponent’s pieces possibilities.
2. Don’t exchange pieces when having a space advantage (and the opposite: strive
for exchanges when in space disadvantage).
33 | P a g e
Lesson 5 – King activity
Hello everyone! Thank you for coming back.
In this lesson, we are going to talk about the king’s activity and king’s marches in the
endgame. So, as we have seen before, the king is the most important piece in the
endgame and it’s very important to activate it as much as possible.
In the next games, we are going to see some classical examples of king’s activity and
king’s penetration and also some games of mine against amateur players, where I’ve
managed to activate my king in a very efficient way. So, let’s see the first example:
White to play
It’s White to move. We see that White has some slight advantage. He has the bishop
versus the knight and the bishop is supposed to be a bit superior to a knight in an
open-type game because it’s a more long range piece. We see that White’s king is
definitely more centralized than its black counterpart. But, it’s still very difficult to
imagine how White can proceed from this position. Because, if, for example, he tries
to break through with the pawn on c5, a lot of pawns will be exchanged; and Black
will also have a lot of active counterplay because of his active rook –it will start
checking the king from behind. So, it’s very unclear whether it really benefits White
to play in this way [1.c5 bxc5+ 2.bxc5 Rd1+].
34 | P a g e
So, what would you play here as White? How would you proceed? White found a
very interesting concept here. He played 1.Be6+, practically forcing the knight to take
the bishop because if the king moves, there will be a checkmate. 1…Nxe6+2.dxe6
Rxe6, basically sacrificing a pawn –a very surprising sacrifice because we are not
used to seeing sacrifices in the endgame. Here, suddenly, White played 3.Kd5 and he
has a very nice square on c6 to aim at, where his king is becoming extremely
powerful. After 3…Re7 4.Kc6, we see that Black is a pawn up but, essentially, White
is just so superior with his king’s position that I think White’s position, at this point,
must be regarded as almost winning, even though he’s a pawn down.
So, let’s see a couple of more moves. 4…Kg7. Now the rook on f4 is not doing too
much, so White played 5.Rf2, perhaps trying to maneuver this rook behind in order to
target this weak pawn on c7. Black tried to initiate some active counterplay with
5…Re4, but after 6.Rc2, he was forced to move back, 6…Re7 7.b5 Kf6 and 8.Ra2.
Now, Black realized that if he just allowed the white rook to penetrate into a7, he
would lose very quickly. So, he tried to play for some active counterplay, after
8…Re4 9.Kxc7Rxc4+.
An important question: White can take two pawns here, the pawn on b6 or the one on
d6: Which pawn would you take? The answer should be easy. The king took the b-
pawn, 10.Kxb6, because now he manages to create a passed pawn for himself on the
b-file. You can see that White’s passed pawn is more significant than the black one
because, first of all, it’s closer to the promotion and; even more importantly, it can be
supported by the white king. So, after 10…d5, White played 11.Ka7 and the pawn is
practically promoted by force. The game lasted for a couple of more moves, but Black
resigned very soon. If you got that right, congratulations! This was a very nice
example of the king’s activity.
Let’s move to the next example.
Here is the game, which I played at the European Chess Championship of 2012.
35 | P a g e
White to play
We can see that White’s pawn structure is slightly better because Black has these two
doubled pawns here (f- and c-files). But, the important question is how you activate
the king from h1 because, at the moment, it’s in the corner of the board –very sad.
How would you activate it? So, my task for you is to try to find a penetration route
into Black’s position, where he can activate his king without being exposed to any
checks or any kind of attacks. So, what would you play here?
White played here 1.Kg2. And, as you can see, the king has a very clear route to get
into Black’s position via h3, g4 and f5. This way, he can also target the weak pawn on
f6. After 1…b5 2.Kh3, the king eventually manages to reach the g4-square, 2…a5
3.Kg4. White held on the advantage, which later on was converted into a win. You
can check the full game out in the pgn file. The rest of the game is not very important;
I just wanted to illustrate one more example of the penetration route with the king.
36 | P a g e
Now let’s move to the next example, which is a really nice one. This is a classic
game. We have very high profile players here. With the white pieces was
Polugaevsky, one of the strongest Russian players of all times and his opponent –
perhaps even a more famous player–, Mikhail Tal, former world champion and well
known for his extremely powerful sacrifices and attacks.
White to play
In this position, we see an endgame with equal material and a symmetrical position.
What can go wrong here? White played an innocent move, 1.a4. Black played a
move, which is, amazingly enough, probably losing the game on the spot: He played
1…Kf6, an extremely natural move, trying to get the king into the center of the board.
But, in hindsight, Black should have considered to play a5 to stop White’s expansion
on the queenside because that is what happened after Kf6.
White played 2.a5 –a very strong move. Now there’s a huge threat of pawn to a6,
trying to open up the diagonal for the g2-bishop. Black cannot really allow it, so he
played 2…a6 –this is a kind of forced move. Black might have thought that he would
be ok in this scenario. But, look at this:
At this position, once again it’s White to move and we have a similar task to the one
before: To try to find a penetration route for the king into Black’s position. So,
Polugaevsky here made a simple, but brilliant maneuver, starting with 3.Kb2. So,
37 | P a g e
now that the b6-square was weakened by Black’s last move, pawn to a6, White starts
to seek for an active outpost for his king. By the way, you might notice that the king is
extremely safe when walking on the dark squares because Black possesses the light-
squared bishop, which cannot really do anything to harass the king and his rooks
cannot really do anything either about this maneuver. After 3…Be64.Kc3 Rac8,
White played 5.Kb4, very cynically, not even caring too much about Black’s moves.
It was, perhaps, the last chance that Black had, to try to stop White from activating his
king to the fullest on b6. He could play …c5+ here, forcing the king back, Kc3, but
the problem is that now the g2-bishop might become a very monstrous piece on this
long diagonal and the pawn on b7 is really a huge weakness. By the way, pay
attention to the fact that this pawn (a5) completely stops the possibility of those pawns
(a6, b7) from moving anytime soon. This pawn on b7 is a fixed weakness and White
in this case also holds a very big advantage –just of a different kind.
But, in the game, Black played 5…h5; he tried to initiate some kind of counterplay on
the kingside –an understandable decision. 6.Bf3hxg4 7.hxg4, pawns’ exchange. Now
Black challenged the d-file with 7…Rcd8.Polugaevsky just very straightforwardly
exchanged the rooks, 8.Rxd8 Rxd8, and played 9.Kc5. We will see that in a couple of
moves, 9.Kc5 Rd4, the difference of the activity of the white king compared to the
activity of the black one is really extremely significant. So, now White played another
nice move, c4. The point is that if he played Kb6 immediately, perhaps Black could
check him on b4; after which, probably it would not be possible for the king to take
the pawn on b7 so easily. But he’s not in any hurry to do anything.
He played c4 and he even allowed Black to capture one pawn on g4, 10.c4 Bxg4
11.Bxg4 Rxg4, but the penetration of the king to b6 is so powerful that even though
Black is temporarily a pawn up, White’s king will collect all of Black’s pawns on the
queenside very easily. And it is really thanks to this brilliant king’s maneuver that
White won the game very convincingly later on.
We can also see that Black’s pawns on the kingside are much more difficult to move
forward –to create a passed pawn. So, once again, later on White won the game with a
very convincing style of play; but I think Black’s position is already beyond salvation.
I’ve shown you this classical example. You can see the rest of the game in the pgn file
–for our theme is not terribly important to see much more.
38 | P a g e
12.Kb6 Rf4 13.f3 e4 14.Kxb7 Ke5 15.Kxa6 Kd4 16.Rxe4+ Rxe4 17.fxe4 g4 18.Kb7
g3 19.a6 g2 20.a7 g1Q 21.a8Q c5 22.Kb6 Kc3 23.Qd5 Qg8 24.Kxc5 Kxb3
25.Qd3+ Kb2 26.Qd6 Kb3 27.Qb6+ Kc2 28.Kb5 Qg4 29.Qd4 Qxe2 30.Kb6 Qh2
31.e5 Kb3 32.c5 f6 33.c6 fxe5 34.Qd5+ Ka4 35.Qb5+ Ka3 36.c7 1–0 (56)
Polugaevsky,L (2640)-Tal,M (2620) Leningrad 1971
Now, let’s take a look at the final example: This is a game that I played with the black
pieces, against an amateur player –one of my students actually.
Black to play
In this position, it’s Black to move. We see that Black holds some advantage. The
main factor here, which gives Black this advantage, is the extremely strong bishop on
the light squares, on d5, looking at both sides of the board –a very strong bishop. We
can see that the white bishop on e3 is very passive and is completely blocked by his
own pawns –a very passive bishop. We can also see that White doesn’t possess a
light-squared bishop of his own, so this means that Black not only has the two-
bishop’s advantage, but he also possesses the full control of the light squares in this
position. There are almost no Black’s pawns on the light squares; almost all of his
pawns are fixed on the dark squares. So, Black’s control over the light squares is
really almost absolute.
39 | P a g e
So, what did Black play here in order to activate his pieces slightly more? Once again,
we pay attention to the king: How do we activate the king? As you probably guessed,
I played 1…Kf7. In a very serious manner, I wanted to activate my king by the
maneuver that you see in front of you (Kg6-Kf5-Ke4-Kd3). This might seem a bit
crazy because there are still quite a lot of pieces on the board. But there are really no
pieces which can attack my king because I just step on light squares. So, remember
this: when you want to activate your king, you really want to step on very safe
squares. So, if you possess the control over the light squares, you want to move on
light squares and vice versa.
By the way, I could also capture the pawn on a2, but I just didn’t want to allow any
kind of counterplay with the white rook coming to a1 and perhaps capturing my pawn
on a7 [1...Bxa2 2.Ra1].
So, after …Kf7, White played 2.h4. I think this was also uncalled-for, because he
fixes another pawn on a dark square. I played 2…Kg6, then 3.Kf2 Kf5. Now, you
will notice how easily the black king is stepping on the light squares without any
problems because Black is having such an absolute control over the light squares.
After 4.Kg3 –I just want to show you the rest of the game, which was not played on
full-time control; I think it was a fifty minutes game–, 4…Bd6. White exchanged,
5.gxf6 gxf6 6.Nh6+ Ke4 7.Nf7, hitting my bishop on d6, 7…Bb8, the bishop just
retreated. 8.Bd2 Rg8+ 9.Kh3. Now comes the really nice part, because Black’s king
has reached an extremely active outpost. And, I can also just take the pawn on d4
right now, but I kept my strategy of stepping only on light squares, so I played
9…Kd3. So, look at the way the king made into White’s position!
Once again, you will notice how hopeless is White in trying to attack this king. And,
now also his bishop is under attack, while I’m also threatening Bg2+. White is forced
to lose material, 10.Bc3 Bg2+, and eventually I won the game quite convincingly.
11.Kh2 Bxf1 12.Rxf1 0–1
What did we see in this lecture? The king usually activates itself via a very clear
penetration route. Usually, you want to step on very safe squares, in order not to be
attacked by your enemy’s pieces. It should be noted that it’s not always the right
choice to go straight into the center of the board. You should take a lot of care about it
because the king is also a very delicate piece which can get under attack. But, if you
feel that there is no danger for it, try to get it as active as possible, try to find this
penetration route. Step only on the opposite square of your opponent’s bishop. Those
40 | P a g e
are all the things that we saw in this example. I hope you enjoyed this couple of
examples. I’ll see you in the next lecture. Bye, bye!
Conclusions
1. When there are few pieces left, try to activate your king as best as you can.
2. Try to find a penetration route for your king to the enemy position, if possible.
3. Try to step on the opposite squares of the enemy bishop.
41 | P a g e
Lesson 6 – Pawn majority
How would you evaluate this position? The queens are off the board, but there are still
plenty of other pieces on the board. I would say that the chances are roughly equal.
Almost all pieces are developed for both White and Black, but White has two pawns
in the center which we would regard as some sort of advantage for White.
But Black has two pawns on the queenside, whereas White has only one, which
means that Black has the pawn majority on the queenside (2 vs 1). White has the
pawn majority on the center, he has two pawns vs one for Black. This is a very typical
pawn structure for the Grunfeld defense, and we typically have a very complicated
scenario of which side will make their pawn majority more significant.
White to play
1.d5a sensible move because he wants to activate his pawn majority in the center and
also attack the a7-pawn. On the other hand, there is a big drawback – it opens the long
diagonal for the g7-bishop. So White should have avoided playing this move.
Of course, Black having the pawn majority on the queenside, should concentrate
playing on the queenside. So keep that mind. If you have pawn majority on one side,
then you should aim your concentration there and you might want to try to create a
passed pawn there, which is the most important thing in the endgame. 1…b5 2.Bb3
42 | P a g e
a5 Black’s pawns are very mobile now, threatening a4.3.a3 Nd3 It suddenly appeared
that White is forced to give up the control over the c-file. 4.Rxc8 Rxc8 Black has
achieved a very nice open file for his rook. So now just after four moves from the
initial position, we see that Black has better chances to win this endgame, because
from the strategic point of view he already has a very big chance of creating a passed
pawn in the coming moves and he also has more active pieces than before, which is
another important factor in the endgame as well.
5.Rd1 Nc5 6.Bxc5 is a mistake, because now the g7-bishop has become extremely
powerful. Almost all of White’s pawns are fixed on light squares which makes the
bishop even stronger. White’s bishop on b3 is extremely bad, because it is restricted
by its own pawns. 6..Rxc5 7.d6 e6 Even though White did managed to create a passed
pawn on d6, it is very well blockaded by Black’s d7-bishop, which is not going to
move anywhere in the next moves.
8.Rd2 a4 9.Ba2 g5 10.g3 Bc3 11.Rd3 [11.Nxc3 Rxc3;11.Rc2 Bb4 12.Rxc5 Bxc5+]
11...b4 12.axb4 Bxb4 the a4-passed pawn having the same promotion color (Black)
as Black’s bishop, makes it more powerful. White’s a2-bishop will eventually be
driven away by Black’s rook.
Black to play
43 | P a g e
We see a similar pawn structure – a 2-vs-1 pawn majority for Black on the queenside.
It might seem drawish to many people, but there are two factors here which favours
Black. How would evaluate the chances for both sides?
• Black is having the more active pieces – his queen is much more centralized
than White’s queen. She controls the open file and also kind of pins White’s
queen to the first rank with some potential checkmate.
• The two pawns on the queenside have more chances to become a passed pawn,
than White’s central pawns.
Therefore, a pawn majority is always stronger with FEWER pawns. i.e. 2 vs 1 is

better than 3 vs 2 or 4 vs 3 and so on. So Black is better here.
1...b5 trying to create a passed pawn on the queenside. 2.h3creating a lift square for
the White’s king (to prevent back rank checkmates). 2…a5 Black has a very clear
plan of creating passed pawn, while it’s much more difficult for White to actually take
advantage of his pawn majority on the center. Because whenever he moves forward,
Black pawns would take them. So his pawn majority is not very significant.
3.Qd1trying to create counterplay with the idea of d6 (to enter his queen into Black’s
kingside). 3…Bd4 simply blocking the d-file for White’s queen and after 4.d6 exd6
5.Bxd6 White bishop being on d6 is much less scary than his queen being there.
5…Kf7 getting his king closer to the center.6.Kh2 Qc3 7.Bf4 a4 White is a bit
helpless by the advance of Black’s pawn on the queenside.8.Bc1 Be5+ 9.f4 Bd4
trying to weaken those central pawns.
10.Qf1 Qc4 White should not exchange the queens, because Black already has a
passed pawn. So it’s better to keep the queens on the board. 11.Qd1[11.Qxc4+
bxc4]Eventually Black pushed 11...b4 which is the key move. White’s only chance is
12.Qxa4 leaving his bishop there.12…Bg1+ intermediate move.[12...Qxc1 13.Qd7+
Kg8 14.Qxd4 Qxf4+ 15.Kh1]
13.Kxg1 Qxc1+ 14.Kh2 Qxf4+ the pawn on e4 will fall. 15.Kh1 Qxe4 and Black
won the game. Therefore, the 2 vs 1 pawn majority for Black is much more
significant than White’s 5 vs 4 majority on the center/kingside.
44 | P a g e
White to play
Typical pawn endgame (2322) [B19]
1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.h4 h6 7.Nf3 Nd7 8.Bd3 Bxd3
9.Qxd3 e6 10.Bd2 Ngf6 11.0–0–0 Bd6 12.Ne4 Nxe4 13.Qxe4 Nf6 14.Qe2 Qc7 15.g3
0–0–0 16.c4 c5 17.Bc3 cxd4 18.Bxd4 Bc5 19.Bxc5 Qxc5 20.Ne5 Qc7 21.b3 Rxd1+
22.Rxd1 Rd8 23.Rxd8+ Kxd8 24.Kb2 Ke7 25.Qe3 b6 26.Qd4 Nd7 27.Nxd7 Qxd7
28.Kc3 Qxd4+ 29.Kxd4 Kd6
It’s a typical kind and pawn endgame, so we only take into account two things:
• King activity
• Pawn majority (passed pawns)
White’s king is slightly more centralized than Black. White has a 3 vs 2 pawn
majority on the queenside, Black has 4 vs 3 on the kingside. Therefore, White has
more chances of getting a passed pawn.
Now I want to illustrate a very nice method which is usually used in the pawn
endgames, but can also be used in other endgames, so it’s a fixation method. So in
order to make your opponent’s pawn majority insignificant, you might to try to fix all
of his pawns in a way that defuses the power of them.
45 | P a g e
[30.b4 h5 31.c5+ bxc5+ 32.bxc5+ Kc6 33.Kc4 e5]
Rather than going immediately with the moves like b4, which would allow Black to
push his own pawns on the kingside (where he has the majority), White played a
clever move 30.h5 fixing Black’s g7 and h6 pawns.
[30...g6 31.hxg6 fxg6 32.f4]
So if the g-pawn ever moves forward, White will take it and play f4, which would
break Black’s pawn majority making it more difficult for him to create a passed pawn.
Black tried the similar thing playing 30...a531.a3 White is ready for his advancement
of pawn on the queenside. 31…f6 a very big mistake, because now the pawn structure
is fixed altogether. The g and h pawns can never move forward, so it’s practically
impossible to create a passed pawn for Black.
[31...Kc6! 32.b4 (32.g4 Kd6 33.b4 (33.f3 Kc6 34.Ke5 Kd7) 33...axb4 34.axb4 Kc6
35.Ke5 Kd7 36.c5 f6+ 37.Kd4 b5)
32...axb4 33.axb4 Kc7 34.c5 b5 35.f3 f6 36.Ke4 Kc6 37.g4 Kc7 38.f4 Kc6 39.Kd3
Kc7 40.Ke3 Kd7 41.Kf3 Ke7;
31...e5+ 32.Ke4 g6 33.hxg6 fxg6 34.b4 axb4 35.axb4 Ke6 36.c5]
32.b4 axb4 33.axb4 Kc6 34.g4 Now White is continuing with his strategy of fixing
Black’s pawns on the kingside. 34…Kd6 35.c5+ bxc5+ 36.bxc5+ a passed pawn is
created for White as he desired. 36…Kd7 37.Kc4 Kc6 38.Kb4 f5 39.gxf5 exf5
40.Kc4 f4 41.f3 Kc7 42.Kd5 Kd7 43.c6+ Ke7 44.Ke5 g5 45.hxg6 1–0
46 | P a g e
Conclusions
1. In the endgame, try to play on the side in which you possess a pawn majority.
2. Don’t move the pawns on your weaker side so not to make it easier to create
passed pawns for your opponent.
3. Fix your opponent pawns to reduce the impact of his pawn majority (defusing his
pawn majority using the fixation method).
4. A pawn majority of less quantity (less number of pawns) should be preferred (e.g.
2 pawns vs 1 is better than 3 vs 2 etc)
47 | P a g e
Lesson 7 – Defensive techniques
Hello, everyone! Welcome to our next session. This time, we are going to take a little
different path: we are going to talk about defensive techniques. Before that, in our
lessons we were looking mainly in positions in which one side was trying to increase
its advantage or to find a winning plan. But here we are going to do exactly the
opposite. We are going to examine situations in which we stand in the inferior
positions and we try to hold on, at least, to make a draw. Most of these examples are
from my own games, sometimes in the stronger side, sometimes in the weaker side;
and we shall see a couple of very important concepts and techniques to try to hold on
worse positions.
White to play
This is our first example. I, specifically, wanted to start from this one because here we
can see a position where Black has 2 extra pawns –we have a queen endgame. Many
people playing as White would just resign, I believe. I’m not even trying to say that
Black is not winning here; he is winning with 2 pawns up, with this pawn on a3 very
close to the promotion. In addition, White cannot check on c5 because then Black
would play Qe5+ and would force the exchange of queens.
48 | P a g e
So, what can White do? I was playing here with the black pieces and I was extremely
confident that I was going to win the game –I didn’t doubt it for one second. But my
opponent was an extremely resourceful player. He never gave up easily; he always
tried to find some tricks and some cunning ideas, even in a very bad position. He
suddenly played 1.h4+ here, giving up yet another pawn. I didn’t even take this move
too seriously; I just assumed this was a very desperate attempt to give me some
checks. So, I took it very quickly.
In hindsight, Black could almost do any other move and he would be very easily
winning. For example, 1…Kh5 would be a very natural move. This way, Black’s king
would be completely sheltered from any checks. Once White doesn’t have any
opportunities to create any immediate checks, Black will centralize his queen and will
eventually win with the help of the a3-pawn.
After 1…Kxh4, White played Qh6: 2.Qh6+ Kg4 3.Qh3+ Kg5 and, after a couple of
more checks, 4.Qe3+ Kf5, White decided to give me another pawn –he played 5.g4+.
At this point, I really had no idea what was going on. Why was my opponent giving
me one more pawn? 5…Kxg4 and now Black is having whopping 4 pawns up. What
is going on? White played 6.Qh3+ and, at this point, I really felt that my opponent
was very desperate –just trying to do some random things in order to save the
position. I didn’t really believe it was going to work.
I played 6…Kf4. And here, as White, you can try to find the best move to draw the
game –I hope you stop the video for that. The move is 7.Qf1+…
…When I saw this move on the board, I almost got a heart attack and I quickly
realized that I had to take the queen, 7…Qxf1=. This is, ladies and gentlemen, a
stalemate! The game was drawn. It was a very painful experience for me because it
was also a very important tournament.
What I really want you to take from this example is this: never feel like you are
winning or be 100% sure you are winning. Don’t be too confident until the game is
over. In the defending side, always try to be resourceful; try to find this kind of ideas.
Many people, when they are in losing positions, they go down very easily; they feel
frustrated or unhappy with the situation; they don’t even try. Many times, when one
side is defending his position in a very strong manner and he is trying to be very
resourceful; a lot of times, he will find good ways to defend his position or to create
serious problems for his opponent.
So, let’s move to the second example.
49 | P a g e
Black to play
In this example, I was playing with the black pieces. We can see a curious endgame
here. Black is a pawn down. Each side has a rook and a knight. All of the pawns are
concentrated in one side of the board. Keep in mind that when the pawns are
concentrated only in one side, it always gives the defending side good drawing
chances; as opposed to positions where one side has an extra pawn on the outside –an
outside extra passed pawn.
Now, let me introduce a second defensive technique that is very helpful in endgames
with a material disadvantage. Or even, for that matter, just a position of disadvantage.
Try to reduce the quantity of pawns. Why is that? When our opponent has the material
advantage, we want to exchange as many pawns as possible because this reduces his
opportunities to win. First, he has fewer pawns to take. In addition, he has fewer
pawns with a potential to be promoted. So, in this scenario, how can Black try to
exchange pawns? At the moment, the knight on f4 is hanging. So, try to think –stop
the video.
50 | P a g e
Black played 1…g5, which I believed is a good practical chance because if the white
knight goes to f5, Black has a nice little tactics, Nxh5+, followed by rook takes
knight; and Black equalizes the game. Another thing you should be noting: if White
played Ng2, Nxg2, Kxg2, we get to a rook endgame. And this is also something to
keep in mind. Out of all the possible endgames that exist in chess, bishop, knight,
queen endgames, any kind of endgame that you can imagine; a rook endgame is
usually the hardest to win with the material advantage. For example, here you see a
position where White has an extra pawn, but I believe this is just a dead draw because
White will find it very hard to win with the reduced material. This is also something
to keep in mind: If you have the possibility, try to reach a rook endgame. Usually, it
will give you better drawing chances than a knight endgame, for example.
If we take the initial position, if I try to exchange the rooks, it doesn’t help me as
much as exchanging the knights. So, after 1…g5, White was practically forced to take
the pawn on g6 en passant, 2.hxg6+ Nxg6. As we know, White is not interested in the
exchange on g6 because then we reach a rook endgame; so, he played 3.Ng2. Also
notice that White is not happy with playing Nf5. We remember that in a worst
endgame, we try to reduce the quantity of pawns. Here, Black would play very easily
with h5, which would help him to get rid of one more pair of pawns. Thanks to this
little tactics, we could get a rook endgame with only one pawn for White, which is
definitely not enough to win. [3.Nf5 h5 4.gxh5 Rxf5 5.hxg6+ Kxg6]: This is a drawn
position.
So, White played 3.Ng2 and, after a couple of more moves, 3...Rf7 4.Re6 Re7 5.Ra6
Kg7 6.f4, Black played 6…Rb7, trying to penetrate on b3. White didn’t allow it and
played 7.Ra3. Black continued with 7...Rb4, trying to play actively. And White
played a very natural move, 8.f5.
Here, it’s Black to move –I give you the opportunity to try to find a resource for Black
in order to try to draw the game. Instead of moving the knight from g6, which would
be the obvious move here, I found a nice move, which is 8…h5. This is a combination
of two defensive principles which we talked earlier. Black is trying to find resources
to make White’s winning conversion more difficult and he is also trying to reduce the
quantity of pawns. But, it’s extremely important to know, in order to play 8…h5, that
this endgame, which can arise after the pawn takes the knight, 9.fxg6 Rxg4+ 10.Kf3
Rxg6, is a theoretical drawn position. So, a rook and a knight versus a rook should be
a draw –and it’s not a very difficult draw to make.
51 | P a g e
This is another tip I wanted to give you about defending endgames. Try to be aware of
some theoretical drawn endgames. If you know, for example, that a certain endgame
is a draw, even with one side having a significant material advantage, you might strive
to get this kind of endgame while your opponent might not be aware that this
endgame is drawn. So, he might go for it and you will get draws in many cases with
this technique. Know your endgames. Know the theoretical drawn positions. That’s
another defensive tip for you.
White realized that he cannot take the knight on g6. Instead, he can take the pawn on
h5, 9.gxh5, but now we see that the pawns are no longer connected. I would, simply,
want to move my knight to e7, 9…Ne7. And, even though White is 2 pawns up at the
moment, my rook is doing the very good job of cutting off his king from defending
those pawns. After, for example, 10.Ra5, I play 10…Kf6 –the pawn is under attack.
11.Ne3 Kg5. That’s, in my mind, a very picturesque position. White is 2 pawns up,
but Black is extremely active with his pieces; he managed to activate his king, his
knight… I think, in the next moves, Black will definitely pick up one of White’s
pawns at least; and he will reach and endgame with only one extra pawn for White
without any other pawns on the board. In this way, Black would have been able to
draw by reducing the quantity of pawns and playing actively.
White tried to play 9.Ra7+ Kh6. Once again, the knight is untouchable because then
Black will be able to take away all of White’s pawns. White played 10.Ne3. Now, my
knight got the chance. It would be a mistake to play hxg4 because, after Ra6, White
would be able to take away the knight without giving up his own pawn and White
would win here. I played 10…Ne511.Ra6+Kg5. You notice that my king is now in a
very active position. And this is, I think, the most important principle in the defense of
a worst endgame: always try to strive for activity. Never try to defend your position
passively. In almost all cases, a passive defense is doomed to failure, while an active
defense very often saves games.
The pawn on g4 is already under many attacks, so White took my pawn on h5,
12.gxh5. Here, Black can simply take on h5, but, once again, I wanted to play for
activity, so I played 12…Rb3, attacking the knight and forcing his king to go down to
a passive position, 13.Kf2. I even pushed him away slightly more with 13…Rb2
14.Kf1. Now, when the white king is extremely far away from the action, I simply
took the pawn on h5, 14…Kxh5. The game was drawn since the f5-pawn is not going
to give White the win because his king is cut off; my king and knight are very active
and Black’s resources to draw the game are more than sufficient.
52 | P a g e
Let’s see the next example:
Black to play
This is one I like very much. Once again, it’s one of the games I played in the Israeli
League –against a Grandmaster. It’s Black to move. At this point, I thought for 20
minutes about my next move. It seems ridiculous because Black has a very obvious
move in his hands, which is to take the c3-pawn and equalize the material. But then I
thought: If I take the pawn, White would play Ra6, with the intention of taking my
pawn on a7; then, I would be forced to play Rc7 to defend it passively; and now, I
would be in a very passive position where White is attacking my pawn, while my rook
is passively defending it. Now, White can very easily play Kg2 and, step by step,
bring his king to the center of the board and also try to highlight my weaknesses,
mainly on the e5-square –this is a very weak pawn.
So, I didn’t want to get myself into a passive position, even though there would be
material equality. I will give you the chance to find an active plan as Black, to try to
hold the position actively; not to play in a passive manner –what I wanted to avoid.
Try to think and find some active plan for Black here.
I came up with a nice idea. I played 1…Rc4, attacking the pawn on g4. White was not
too happy to give up this pawn that easily, so he played 2.h3. Then, I played 2…Ra4
–this was the main point of moving Rc4. Now, I am the one who is attacking his a-
53 | P a g e
pawn (a2) and he is the one who is forced to defend it passively, 3.Rd2. Even though,
in this variation, White kept an extra pawn, I believed that, thanks to Black’s very
active pieces, I should be able to draw the game fairly comfortably.
I played 3…Rc4. He was forced to play 4.Rc2. Now my rook is dominating his rook;
but White still has the plan of bringing his own king to the center of the board, trying
to drive my rook away. This was a very critical point in the game, I believe, where I
went astray and eventually lost the game. It’s Black to move. Once again, I invite you
to try to find a good plan for Black, with the intention of being very active. Try to
activate your pieces. How can Black try to create an active counterplay?
I made a mistake here. I played 4…f5. The right move for Black would be to play
4…Kg7, with the intention of penetrating into his position via the h4-square, trying to
highlight the weakness of the h3-pawn. I believe that, if Black had done this, he
would have been able to hold a draw in this position very easily. The reason why
moving 4…f5 was a mistake was that I created a lot of weaknesses in my pawn
structure, 5.gxf5 gxf5. White played an excellent 6.Rb2, practically giving me the c3-
pawn. If I took it now, White could play Rb5, where you can see that my pawns were
a very easy target for him.
So, after 6.Rb2, I was forced to bring my king into the center, 6…Kf7, but then I lost
the whole point of placing my rook on c4 and trying to force him into passivity. I let
his rook get active, 7.Rb7+ Kf6 8.Rxa7 Rxc3. And, in this position, White’s extra
pawn was much more significant than it was before because he could start pushing it
forward. Now his rook was no longer passive; it was very active to do whatever he
wanted. Later on, White managed to win the game, but I did feel good about myself
after the game because I didn’t go down easily. I managed to create problems for my
opponent in converting his advantage: I played actively. If I had found this plan of
Kg7 to activate my king, I think I would have had very good chances to draw the
game.
Let’s summon the things we have learned in this lesson. When you are on the
defensive side, usually, you should be very much resourceful to find all kinds of ideas
to disturb your opponent. Don’t give up easily. That is what your opponent wants you
to do for him to win the game. Usually, if you play very resourcefully, it will also
frustrate you opponent because he is not winning as easily as he would like to, and
you will save many games this way.
The second thing we learned is that you should try to reduce the quantity of pawns.
On the defensive side, on the board there should be as fewer pawns as possible.
54 | P a g e
And, perhaps this is the most important thing of all, always try for activity –try to play
active chess. If you need, you should also give up material, if the position requires so.
Never try to defend a worst endgame passively because the classics told us and
showed that it almost never works in practice.
I hope you enjoyed this lesson. I will see you in the next one. Thank you for watching.
Bye, bye!
Conclusions
1. When you are on the defensive side, try to be active, even at the cost of material.
Passive defense usually dooms to failure.
2. Try to reduce the quantity of pawns.
3. Stalemate!
55 | P a g e
Lesson 8 – General tips for successful endgame playing
This is the final lesson of the course and I wanted to congratulate you for coming this
far!  I hope you learnt a lot of things about endgame. Here I’m going to talk about
some general practical advises and tips about playing the endgame from my
experience.
The first thing I wanted to teach you is being practical – trying to know which
endgame to go with.
Black to play
The position is not strictly an endgame – we have queens, rooks, knights and bishops
on the board. Black is a pawn up. This game was played very recently in one of my
simultaneous exhibitions online. I played against one of my students, an amateur
player.
56 | P a g e
As you know in a simul game, the player who gives the simul doesn’t have much time
to think - he needs to trust his guts and to play what seems to be natural for his
intuition. So instead of trying to find any sophisticated checkmating ideas, which by
the way might be possible because Black has a knight and a queen in the attack. I
think many players with good tactical vision and attacking skills probably might
manage to find some good ideas for Black to finish this game.
But I found a nice way to force an endgame which was in my favour. So what would
you play here as Black? Please think about it. Let me remind you that Black is a pawn
up.
So what I did here was in a way very extremely simple. 1...Nd2+ the knight is
attacking the bishop so the forced move is 2.Kg1 Now I simply wanted to exchange
all of the pieces – because I’m a pawn up.
So when you’re a pawn up, the easiest endgame to win is a pawn endgame! This is
something that many chess players are being taught from a basic level – when you
have the material advantage, try to exchange as many pieces as possible.
In a pawn endgame, being a pawn up is extremely significant. The most difficult

endgame to win is the rook endgame – so you should try to avoid it when you have
the material advantage.
So how to exchange all the pieces?2…Rxa7 3.Qxa7 Qc1 exploiting the bishop on f1.
White is forced to play 4.Qa6 At this point Black can already take on f1 with no
particular problem, but since the bishop is pinned I spent one more tempo on
developing the king – bringing it closer to the center. 4…Kf6 5.Kg2 now the bishop
got unpinned so I forced the exchanges. 5…Qxf1+ 6.Qxf1 Nxf1 7.Kxf1 Ke5 And
now it’s an easy endgame to win.8.Ke2 Kd4 9.Kd2 e5 10.f3 f5
So here is my tip to you – know which endgames are winning for you and which are
not. This way you can steer the game to what endgame you want to play. And this can
help you a lot – because rather trying to play a complicated position, I just knew that
the pawn endgame is easily winning and I went on exchanging pieces and won
without any difficulty.
Especially when you have the material advantage, in general sense, you want to get to
a pawn endgame.
57 | P a g e
Black to play
How would you evaluate this endgame? The material is equal. This might look
completely equal, but actually Black has a couple of very important trumps here.
1) He has the open h-file – he has a target to attack, the weak pawn on h3, which
White needs to constantly protect.
2) Black has the opportunity to breakthrough on the queenside, on a4, which

White cannot do. White is forced to play passively.
3) Black is having the better light piece. All of White’s pawns are on light-
squares (the color of his bishop). So his bishop is very passive. Whereas,
Black bishop will eventually be able to attack those pawns which are fixed on
the light-squares, so he is the one who is having the better bishop.
But how to win this kind of endgame? The biggest tip I can give you in a general
regard is being extremely patient. The endgame can last for a very long time and it’s
not the same as a checkmating attack. When you are attacking, you might finish the
game in 2-3 moves when you find the right tactics. But it’s not the same in endgame.
58 | P a g e
In the endgame, it’s not about winning quickly, but about winning cleanly. It means
that you want to win as smooth as possible – you don’t want to give your opponent
any chance of counter-play.
I’ll show you the two very common techniques used in most of the grandmasters’
games.
1) Trying to improve your position to the maximum before going for action.
2) Being always aware of your opponent’s potential counterplay.
Many players would push a4 here, which is not necessarily wrong, but also looks a bit
good. It’s already possible and it’s good to open up the a-file for your rooks. BUT, a
very experienced player would typically avoid doing such an action before he
maximizes the power of his position.
Black played 1...Kd8 – the king has a very nice outpost right here on c5 square. This
would be an advanced square for the king. So before going for a4-break, he is trying
to maximize the power of his pieces.
[1...a4!?]
It’s important for the defending side not to play passively. Always strive to find
couterplays. So what can White do here? He can try to reduce the amount of pawns,
which he did by playing 2.Rh1 Kc7 3.Kg3 trying to play h4 and exchange the pawns,
also trying to open the file for his rooks to generate counterplay. Black being very
experienced did not allow this - 3…Rh4 not giving any opportunities for
counterplay.4.Rh2 Kb6 5.Rd2
[5.a3!?]
I would say that if we’ll flip the board for a second – if I were White and to think
about some opportunities of counterplay. I would try to push the pawn to a3 even if
this means a potential loss of pawn. I think this move would at least try to generate
some counterplay and give chances for White. But once White did not do it, Black
played extremely calmly 5...Rc8 6.Rf1 Rch8 7.Bg2 Kc5
From a passive square (e7) the king has reached a very nice central outpost. Black
managed to activate his king beautifully.
59 | P a g e
8.Rff2And now, only now, after Black maximized the power of his king, he can
proceed with his final plan of breaking through on the queenside with a4. So he
played 8…Ra8 as he was not in any rush, preparing the pawn-break.9.Be4 a4
With the king on c5, this break is even stronger than it was before. It can take on c4-
pawn any moment if the b3-pawn falls.
10.Rf1 axb3 11.axb3 Ra3 12.Bc2 Ra2 13.Rf3 Ra3 14.Rf1 Black proceeded with
improving his last passive piece – 14…Rh8 15.Rh2 Ra2 16.Rb1 Rha8 Black’s
pieces are now extremely active. These two rooks are on perfect positions.
17.Kf3 R8a3 18.Ke3 As we mentioned earlier, the power of bishops in an endgame –

Black’s bishop can attack the White’s pawns but White cannot do the same with his
bishop, because Black’s pawns are fixed on darksqaures. He played 18…Ba4 19.Rd2
Here comes the very critical moment of the game. How to breakthrough from here?
Black’s pieces are on optimal squares – how to proceed? 19…Rxc2 removing the
defender of the b3-pawn. 20.Rxc2 Bxb3 21.Rcb2 Ba2+
Conclusions
1. Be patient. Endgames can take a lot of time to convert. Don’t rush – take your
time in the endgame. Improve your position step by step before proceeding to the
final break.
2. Try to be aware of your opponent’s possibilities of counterplay. Your opponent

has nothing to lose if he is defending. Don’t play passively when you are
defending.
3. Be resourceful, never give up.
60 | P a g e
Practical Part - INSTRUCTIONS
The video lessons of the course, “Practical endgames”, give you a lot of useful
knowledge. It’s highly recommended that you watch these video lessons SEVERAL
TIMES. This will help you digest and automate the skills that separate the amateurs
from the pros.
Now it is necessary to put the knowledge received into practice. This

practical addition to the course will help you do so. I am giving you the training
program which accurately explains exactly what you should do.
Remember, you MUST train and automate these skills (especially your
thinking process) before you can use them in real games.
What will this practical part give you?
 You will understand the ideas of the course better.

 You will remember the ideas of the course better.
 And the main thing: you will start putting the course’s ideas into practice.
Thus, you will acquire these practical skills fully.
The practical course contains nine tasks. Each of them is in a different folder. A
separate instruction accompanies each task. You should carry out all of these tasks
consistently (from 1st to 10th), following the corresponding instructions.
NOTES:
• In each task, you will see that it is White’s or Black’s turn.

• Remember that you should focus on the quality of your training, not on the
quantity of work performed.
• Do not use computer engines while performing these tasks. In order to train
your skills, you should think yourself.
• If something is not clear to you –watch the video lessons once again.
• Even if any task seems simple to you –I strongly recommend that you perform
it seriously.
• The chess games are in *.pgn format. Any chess program can open this.
• You should think about every single position for not less than 3 minutes and
not more than 15 minutes.
• In most tasks, you will need to find the next move in a given position. Then
you will study the answer. While looking at the answer, I recommend you to
go over the whole game (not only the first move). These games are very
instructive and you can find a lot of useful ideas in them.
61 | P a g e
Now you should start performing the tasks:
1. Read the instruction (from the relevant file) for a certain task.
2. Go to the folder with chess games/puzzles.
3. Go to the folder with chess games/tasks.
While performing these tasks, you will encounter a lot of positions where you
need to find the following move. Please take note of the main purpose of such
training: you should THINK about it, APPLY the general ideas (from the video
lessons) and UNDERSTAND more deeply how these ideas work practically.
These ideas can help you find the answers to the puzzle positions.
While you often need to find the best move in a certain position, your main goal is
NOT simply to detect the right answer. Your objective is to train your correct
system of thinking.
Please don’t be upset if you can’t find the solution to all tasks: after all, “no pain,
no gain!” The HARDER and SMARTER your training, the GREATER your
progress!
Good luck!
GM Igor Smirnov
62 | P a g e
The Practical Part: 1. Endgame Evaluation
The first task in the practical course is to evaluate the 10 endgames positions.
1) Your task is to open the file: “Task 1”. Use a real chessboard and re-create
the position there. Study each position for 1-3 minutes.
2) Check the solutions: Open the folder: “1. Endgame Evaluation” and check
the solutions carefully.
63 | P a g e
The Practical Part: 2. Two Weaknesses
The next task in the practical course is to create two weaknesses to your
opponent’s position.
2) Check the solutions: Open the folder: “2. Two Weaknesses” and check the
solutions carefully.
64 | P a g e
The Practical Part: 3. Pawn Structure
The next task in the practical course is to attack your opponent’s weak pawn
structure.
2) Check the solutions: Open the folder: “3. Pawn Structure” and check the
65 | P a g e
The Practical Part: 4.Space advantage
The next task in the practical course is to use your space advantage.
2) Check the solutions: Open the folder: “4.Space advantage” and check the
66 | P a g e
The Practical Part: 5.King activity
The next task in the practical course is to use your king. The king is a very
useful piece on the endgame and you should use it!
2) Check the solutions: Open the folder: “5.King activity” and check the
67 | P a g e
The Practical Part: 6.Pawn majority
The next task in the practical course is to use your pawn majority.
2) Check the solutions: Open the folder: “6.Pawn majority” and check the
68 | P a g e
The Practical Part: 7.Defensive techniques
The last task in the practical course is to use your pawn majority.
2) Check the solutions: Open the folder: “7.Defensive techniques” and check
the solutions carefully.
69 | P a g e

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Remote Chess Academy

I appreciate Olga Carreño’s effort in polishing the texts of the course.

Lesson 1 – How to evaluate an endgame

So if you got that right, congratulations! 

How would you evaluate this position?

So my evaluation is –White is better, but not extremely significant advantage because

• Also his king is slightly more centralized than White’s.

• His queen is more centralized than Black’s queen.

• Or alternatively, he can push pawns on the queenside and create some

1. Piece activity (including king activity)

Lesson 2 – The principle of two weaknesses (karpovs classics)

Viktor Korchnoi - Anatoly Karpov [D53]

Korchnoi played 28.Rb3. He decided not to wait passively because if he plays a

So, it was played 42…Qc5+43.Kh1 and then 43…Qd5+. We call it a ladder

Kasparov, Garry (2851) - Bacrot, Etienne (2594) [C45]

1. Create a weakness for your opponent

2. Force him to defend his weakness passively

Lesson 3 – Pawn structure (weaknesses)

Hello everyone. This is lesson #3 of the course on “Practical Endgames”. In this

3. One pawn island is better than multiple pawn islands.

Lesson 4 – Space advantage

Lasker, Emanuel - Capablanca, José Raúl [C68]

Here, Lasker played a very interesting move, which, in my view, is a bit of a

Giri, Anish (2722) - Christiansen, Johan Sebastian (2071) [C63]

Lesson 5 – King activity

Hello everyone! Thank you for coming back.

Let’s move to the next example.

11.Kh2 Bxf1 12.Rxf1 0–1

3. Try to step on the opposite squares of the enemy bishop.

Lesson 6 – Pawn majority

Therefore, a pawn majority is always stronger with FEWER pawns. i.e. 2 vs 1 is

Typical pawn endgame (2322) [B19]

[30.b4 h5 31.c5+ bxc5+ 32.bxc5+ Kc6 33.Kc4 e5]

[30...g6 31.hxg6 fxg6 32.f4]

31...e5+ 32.Ke4 g6 33.hxg6 fxg6 34.b4 axb4 35.axb4 Ke6 36.c5]

Lesson 7 – Defensive techniques

So, let’s move to the second example.

2. Try to reduce the quantity of pawns.

Lesson 8 – General tips for successful endgame playing

In a pawn endgame, being a pawn up is extremely significant. The most difficult

2) Black has the opportunity to breakthrough on the queenside, on a4, which

2) Being always aware of your opponent’s potential counterplay.

17.Kf3 R8a3 18.Ke3 As we mentioned earlier, the power of bishops in an endgame –

2. Try to be aware of your opponent’s possibilities of counterplay. Your opponent

3. Be resourceful, never give up.

Practical Part - INSTRUCTIONS

Now it is necessary to put the knowledge received into practice. This

What will this practical part give you?

 You will understand the ideas of the course better.

• In each task, you will see that it is White’s or Black’s turn.

Now you should start performing the tasks:

The Practical Part: 1. Endgame Evaluation

The Practical Part: 2. Two Weaknesses

The Practical Part: 3. Pawn Structure

The Practical Part: 4.Space advantage

The Practical Part: 5.King activity

The Practical Part: 6.Pawn majority

The Practical Part: 7.Defensive techniques