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.

 

Vladimir Korolkov, (1907-1987). Soviet Endgame Composer. Noted for his imaginative compositions. Author of 'Selected Studies' ( 1958) which contains over a hundred of his studies.

White is material down but he has compensation in the poor position of the Black King at the edge of the board. At first it may seem that he has a quick knockout blow here. But the g4+ doesn't lead anywhere and promoting the g-pawn falls to the ....Bd5+ skewer . White has to defend against this Bishop check anyway because once Black has stopped the queening threat, he is threatening to win with his pawn at a3. So White's first move is easy to understand.

A wonderful imaginative study showing Korolkov's great talent. The theme based on consecutive checks from the pawns leading to stalemate influenced him a long time but here we see the idea for the first time.

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