Jan-19-21 Baklan vs Zhao Zong-Yuan, 2000
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| nummerzwei: In this Olympiad encounter, the Ukrainian team beat Australia by 4-0. However, on the third board, Black managed to reach the drawn rook endgame with f- and h-pawns (at move 45). From the subsequent play, it is clear that already at fourteen years of age, Zhao had formed a sound ... |
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Jan-10-21 A Makarenko vs Z Abdumalik, 2015 
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| nummerzwei: Usually, bishop, knight and pawn defeat a solitary rook. It's three against one, after all. A typical drawn position occurs after 62...e4? 63.Ke3 Ng5 64.Re5 Kg6 65.Kf4 Nh3+ 66.Ke3 . Black's pawn is cut off from her forces, which allows White to threaten it continuously. Black's ... |
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Dec-29-20 G Nakhbayeva vs Goryachkina, 2019
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| nummerzwei: Strange that this dragged out for as long as it did. After 40...Rf4!? 41.Rxf4 gxf4 42.Kg4 f3 43.Kxf3 Kf5 White would have been forced to come to her senses and resign, but I guess Goryachkina didn't mind anyway. |
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Dec-29-20 A Zapata vs Korchnoi, 1984
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| nummerzwei: Endgames with rook and two pawns against bishop and two pawns on the same wing are rather tricky: [DIAGRAM] I think that White could have held the position with 51.a4, trying to build the standard fortress with b3 followed by transferring the bishop to the long diagonal. In ... |
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Dec-23-20 L Garifullina vs Kosteniuk, 2020
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| nummerzwei: 84.Kd2 Kd4 85.Rd7 Ra2+ 86.Kd1 gave a solid Cochrane Defence. Instead, 84.Kb2?! was a strange decision that made life difficult for White. After 88.Ka3? the position is lost, whereas 88.Kc1 (among others) still draws despite the progress that Black has already made. White did not ... |
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Dec-20-20 Miles vs Gelfand, 1994
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| nummerzwei: No less amazing is the fact that an identical rook endgame was played between Hasangatin and Vokarev in 1998 ( R Hasangatin vs S Vokarev, 1998 ). [DIAGRAM] The colors are reversed, but that is all. I don't think that Hasangatin was ever trained by Eduard Zelkind, but ... |
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Nov-27-20 J Sefc vs Averbakh, 1956
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| nummerzwei: <The endgame after 83 moves is a theoretical draw, and Averbakh was unable to make any headway.> Except that it isn't! A number of endgame books, as late as <Fundamental Chess Endings> (2001), treat it that way, but the tablebase confirms that Black is winning all ... |
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Oct-26-20 Lasker vs Steinitz, 1896
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| nummerzwei: This is the position after Black's 56...Rg4:
[DIAGRAM] White cannot make progress if Black just keeps his rook on the g-file. In fact, the position is still drawn if you remove Black's pawn. |
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Oct-23-20 Stein vs Robert E Byrne, 1971
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| nummerzwei: <The position after 54...gxh3 must surely be drawn, but did Byrne assume that 54...Ke5 55.Be8 would also be drawn because the rook has to defend the h-pawn? Houdini thinks that Black can run the bishop short of squares and achieve a sort of Zugzwang with 55...Kd6 56.Kf2 Re5 ... |
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Oct-14-20 F Vallejo Pons vs Sergey Drygalov, 2019
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| nummerzwei: Fixing the g4-pawn with 43...h6 and 44...g5 gives a fairly easy win, even in a blitz game. As Ludek Pachman pointed out in <Endspielpraxis im Schach>, a remarkable feature of positions with rook vs bishop and two pawns each on the same wing is that they are no less drawish ... |
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