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.

Top Soviet composer. Bron became interested in studies at an early age and gained his first of many awards in 1925, in the tourney of the All-Union chess section. Author of "Selected Studies and Problems" (1969). Bron built on the work started by Troitsky and the earlier Soviet composers.

The Bishops+Knight vs Rook ending is usually a theoretical win for the minor pieces. But in the above study it is complicated by the presence of the pawns and the fact that White's black-squared Bishop is short of retreat squares. White's immediate problem is how to extricate his Bishop. The Black King will chase it and win it but he finds himself caught in a horrible trap. If the pawns had been better situated then Black may have had real chances of drawing the final phase of the ending. It is a remarkable study.

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.