Karsten Müller - Understanding Rook vs. Minor Piece Endgames

Understanding Rook versus Minor Piece Endgames

by Karsten Mller and Yakov Konoval

ISBN: 978-1-949859-11-9 (print)

ISBN: 978-1-949859-12-6 (eBook)

Copyright 2019

Karsten Mller and Yakov Konoval

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be used, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any manner or form whatsoever or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Published by:

Russell Enterprises, Inc.

P.O. Box 3131

Milford, CT 06460 USA

http://www.russell-enterprises.com

Cover by Janel Lowrance

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1
Rook versus Knight Endgames

Chapter 2
Rook versus Bishop Endgames

Chapter 3
Rook versus Two Knights Endgames

Chapter 4
Rook versus Two Bishops Endgames

Chapter 5
Rook versus Bishop + Knight Endgames

Chapter 6
Rook + Knight versus Rook Endgames

Chapter 7
Rook + Bishop versus Rook Endgames

Chapter 8
Rook + Minor Piece versus
Rook + Minor Piece Endgames

Chapter 9
Endgame Studies

Bibliography

Books

Dvoretskys Endgame Manual, Mark Dvoretsky, Russell Enterprises 2003, 4th edition 2014

Encyclopedia of Chess Endings (ECE)

Fundamental Chess Endings, Mller and Lamprecht, GAMBIT 2001

How to Play Chess Endgames, Mller and Pajeken, GAMBIT 2008

Nunns Chess Endings, John Nunn, GAMBIT 2010

Understanding Chess Endgames, John Nunn, GAMBIT 2009

Understanding Minor Piece Endgames, Mller and Konoval, Russell Enterprises 2018

Understanding Rook Endgames, Mller and Konoval, GAMBIT 2016

DVDs

Chess Endgames 1-14, Mller, ChessBase Fritztrainer DVDs, Hamburg 2006-2013

Periodicals and Magazines

ChessBase Magazine (CBM) and CBM Blog at ChessBase.com

Chess Informant

Chess Today

Endgame Corner at ChessCafe.com

New in Chess Magazine

The Week in Chess

Databases and Programs

ChessBase Lets Check online database

ChessBase MEGABASE 2018

Harold van der Heijdens study database

Komodo 12

Konoval five-, six- and seven-piece tablebases

Lomonosov seven-piece tablebase

Nalimov five-, and six-piece tablebases

Stockfish 9

Syzygy five-, six- and seven-piece tablebases

Preface

Knowing the abilities and limitations of the minor pieces and their cooperation with a rook is very valuable for mastering the secrets of the royal game and this can be studied best in the endgame. There are already many books dealing with the issue, so why have we added another one to the collection? Computer technology is getting all the time and it is advancing endgame theory.

Yakov Konoval and Marc Bourzutschky have created seven-piece tablebases and so the definitive verdict on all such positions and optimal lines are certainly known. Now seven-piece Lomonosov Tablebases are available online. They allow the evaluation of any given position. But Marc and Yakov have developed additional software which allows one to obtain additional interesting data automatically such as long wins, zugzwangs, typical positions, etc.. Thanks to this software, there are many new discoveries in this book.

As the previous two volumes in this series, Understanding Rook Endgames and Understanding Minor Piece Endgames, this volume follows a dual philosophy. We deal with the seven-piece endings in great detail. They are often so deep that pre-tablebase analysis almost always contains mistakes. Many new discoveries are revealed here. We have also added the important five- and six-piece endings a club player should know. But to really understand the fight of minor piece against and with rooks, these theoretical positions are of course not enough. So we have added subchapters on the principles of each material configuration. Finally we want to thank Vladimir Makhnychev and Victor Zakharov for assisting with access to the Lomonosov Tablebases and Alex Fishbein for his excellent foreword.

Karsten Mller and Yakov Konoval

March 2019

Foreword

When I was growing up, my bedtime story books included Averbakhs endgame books. Today, German grandmaster Karsten Mller is no less an endgame authority and connoisseur than Averbakh back in the day. Karsten Mllers latest work, Understanding Rook and Minor Piece Endings, co-written with Yakov Konoval, is especially interesting because of the variety of the positions it covers. The book before you now will take you into a mysterious and charming world. The actors in these fairy-tale stories are the rook, the bishop, and the knight.

As an endgame junkie myself, I agree with Jos Ral Capablanca that the student should start with study of the endgame, before the opening and middlegame. But why is that? And, more importantly, how should you study the endgame and what do you need to gain from that study?

For me, a valuable endgame lesson is one where I come away with a deeper understanding of, or rather a deeper feeling for, what the pieces can do. I want the pieces to come to life before my eyes, so that I know when they are strong and when they are weak, when they should be sacrificed for a higher purpose or when they deliver the crushing blow. Positions with minimal material offer the best glimpse into the geometry of the chessboard. When only the rook and knight remain, for example, it is easier to see who they really are. That is why I study the endgame.

Karsten Mller offers many such lessons in this book. He starts, in fact, with the rook vs knight pawnless ending, and shows that it is not as simple as commonly thought. I was surprised how often even very strong grandmasters made mistakes in what looks like a book position, and I learned something about what to do with the knight when it is in danger of ending up on the vulnerable g2 (or g7, b2, b7) square.

My least favorite part of endgame study is memorization of exact positions. I almost never do it! I have seen many books that classify their material into an endless set of exact positions, most of which will probably never occur in your games. Mller is very careful to avoid this pitfall. He has structured the book around ideas rather than theoretical positions. To be sure, there are a couple of cases where the position and method need to be memorized, and on those rare occasions he makes a point to note that. But most examples are real-life games (not even endgame studies), where actual humans play, often making mistakes. A lot of positions are borderline cases, straddling between a win and a draw, and that is where the struggle between the pieces becomes the most fascinating and instructive.

There were quite a few revelations for me in this book. For example, the rook vs. bishop fortress with pawns on one side is not as easy to hold as I had been taught (position 02.58) or it can be altogether losing (position 02.60). There is long analysis which you are not going to remember, and on no account should you try to memorize it. Sometimes there are not any obvious generalizations to be made. But positions with no clear guidelines are perhaps even more valuable than positions in which everything can be broken down logically. When you study these border cases, you will improve your endgame intuition and come closer to the stage where the pieces and their possibilities become second nature to you. And besides, positions with a real struggle occur more often than positions where everything is already well known.