Welcome to this active site. Each week I am going to present to you an 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.

Czech Grandmaster and Author. Represented his country in the Olympiads from 1952-1966. A well known writer and top theoretician of the opening and middlegame phases of the game. He was arrested and imprisoned for his political activities during the "Prague spring" of 1968. He was later allowed to leave for West Germany and he represented them in the 1976 Olympiad.

 

Black has a winning positional advantage. He has greater space and more mobility than his opponent who is passively placed. He has a mobile queenside majority which will enable him to obtain a dangerous passed pawn. White's majority is crippled by the doubled g-pawns.

This ending is a wonderful example of the principle of two weaknesses. The first weakness in White's position was his queenside where his opponent was always threatening to obtain a powerful passed pawn. In order to win Black had to open up another front on the opposite wing. Black cleverly fixed the enemy g-pawn and then attacked and won it with his King.

1. Cumulative 2003 Prizes: 1st £100 or equivalent, 2nd £50, 3rd £30; 4th £20. (Total Prize Money=£200) Entries limited to 20 solvers. This event will run from 5/1/2003 to 22/12/2003 with a recess in July. Present CUMULATIVE COMPETITION rules apply but note the prizes will go to those participants who climb the ladder the greatest number of times during the year. The relative position of the solver's name on the ladder will decide the allocation of prizes.