Endgame Bootcamp: 17

Welcome to Endgame Bootcamp 17

For those unfamiliar with Lichess this is the homepage.

To jump right into drilling for endgames head to the Learn Tab and go to Practice

You're also able to plug in the FEN position we will be discussing in the blog, and duke it out with the computer on whichever difficulty level you'd like. Test your mettleMake sure to select the bottom option to create a custom starting position
Now you are ready to fight the Silicone Beast, and sharpen your claws in the endgame!

Starting Position

4r3/7R/5kp1/8/pp6/6P1/PP1K3P/8 w - - 0 34

We are getting out our binoculars this camp and looking as far as we can for White's win, because it's not close with all of the ways Black could defend. Do not be fooled that this is simply easy, because in a time crunch you still have a ton of moves left until checkmate. Imagine you are on top of a mountain looking through those binoculars towards the far off destination. The sun may still be out but you still have to make it to shelter by nightfall. Thankfully there's plenty of ways for you to get there, it will take some time to decide which path you'd like to map out. Maybe you'd like some extra time once you've made it to shelter for an evening activity, or maybe not, you could prefer a scenic route if you haven't yet soaked up enough of your surroundings.

Motifs

A good exercise for weaving multiple theoretical ideas that are permeated in King rook pawn endings i.e. Philidor and Lucena.

Let's focus on proper use of our rook in this endgame.

Rooks help with capturing your enemies’ pawns that want to promote, as well as assisting your own pawns promoting. Sometimes all it takes is a rook to position itself to cut the enemy off, sectioning them in one part of the board making it easy to promote and mate. It’s not always that easy, sometimes there’s plenty of pawns for the taking. If the opponent gets lucky they will promote. Therefore, it generally follows that as pawns disappear you have more chances of a drawn ending, so preserve as many as you can while gobbling up the other sides.

Rd7: The scenic Route

The Study for those who want to have desert before dinner. Since this is such an expansive endgame I will review some moves but keep it limited as we can easily get lost on our way to destination, and we only have so much time before sundown.

An option for Black: a3

Beast thinks best chance is to push the Queenside Pawns then walk White around while threatening pawns. White holds the victory by putting pressure on whichever side of the board Black doesn’t have their King. Black’s King has made it closest to the center of the board, so using the rooks to deliver checks and weighing the options of which square the King should makes things sharp. Once we have avoided the chances for Black to steal the win, it’s about the theoretical positions that are well known, but are they studied/practiced enough?

A checkpoint is reached in the variation: Rd7 a3 Rd4 axb2 Rxb4 Rh8 Rxb2 Rxa2+ Kc3 Ra3 Rf2+ Ke5 Re2+ Kd5 Re3
Rh8 a4 Ra8 Kb4 Rb8+ Ka3 Ra8 Rb3.

I have highlighted the critical moves for White's victory, as we entered the Tablebase when Rxb2 occurred. Take some time to ponder why certain moves are musts for White:

Some deviations for Black, we are at a crossroads on our journey. You will still see similar motifs play out in each of them for White.

Kc4

Kc6

Re8

Feel free to explore all the possibilities of this game, there's some lines that take a while before you're in Tablebase territory.

You made it to the endof this Bootcamp, congratulations!