Welcome to this active site. Each week I am going to present to you a endgame position for you to solve or to workout the best continuation. Computer analysis will also be considered. Some of these positions will come from actual historical games. Others will be composed endgame studies, but all the solutions will be relevant to the practical game.
The new position will occur each SUNDAY and I will always be pleased to receive POSITIVE feedback about the positions and the analysis and I will try to acknowledge these where relevant.
Vasily Panov (1906-1973) Soviet International Master and a brilliant opening theorist. Remembered mainly for reintroducing a variation of the Caro-Kann which became very popular and was named after him. He won the Moscow Championship in 1929 and in the following two decades played regularly in the USSR Championships. He was a journalist by profession and wrote a number of books the most important of which was the best selling series Comprehensive Chess Openings. Later editions were co-authored with Yakov Estrin.
A passed pawn becomes very dangerous when it stands on the penultimate rank because the promotion square has to be guarded committing the defending piece to a passive position. Often in such situations there becomes available a tactical trick to help force home the pawn. In this position White is a pawn down and faces a powerful queenside attack but the protected g-pawn is so strong that with a number of surprising moves Black is rendered helpless.
This move must have been a great shock to Black. White can also win by playing 1.Rbe1 1...b4 2.Bxe6 ! (The sacrifice cannot be taken because after 2...fxe6 3.f7 the two passers are so strong.) 2.Ba4 3.Rd5+ and White is easily winning. The move played in the game is very beautiful and the most direct way to win.
A nice try at a swindle which might have worked against an over confident opponent. If White now pushes one of his passed pawns he loses to...Bxc2+!! and faces the humilation of being mated.
A beautiful ending by Panov. In offering his Rook he had to workout the consequence of Blacks counterattack and see the defensive move 7.Bd1! well in advance.
In the coming weeks there will be a few technical changes but the competitions go on as previously. The web + email address remains the same. There will be no need to alter your browser. Some of these changes will be slight and others will be out of my control but more on this in the future. Thanks for your continued interest.
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The overall scores for the millennium prize are as follows: Patrick Peschlow GERMANY David Rowe ENGLAND Henryk Kalafut USA/POLAND Mike Fitch USA Vojna Alexander UKRAINE Peter Bereolos USA |
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