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.

 

Hungarian Grandmaster who survived the horror of forced labour service and imprisonment in the Second World War to become one of the strongest non-Soviet players of the post-war period. He played in three Candidate tournaments and it was at Amsterdam 1956 that he came close to the world championship: he came equal third with a group of Soviet grandmasters just behind Smyslov and Keres.

White has the opportunity of a winning break on the Kingside with f4 but first he passes the move to Black. By playing 1.b3! the Black monarch is forced out of position and White gains important tempi for the pawn push. The resulting queen ending is very complicated, but exciting and worth playing through. The White monarch escapes the checks by hiding behind its own passed b-pawn.

11...Qe1+! makes the winning process more difficult. The King escapes the checks by moving up the board and then hiding behind its own b-pawn. 12.Kg4! Qe6+ 13.Kg5 Qe3+ 14.Kg6 Qe4+ 15.Kg7 Qg4+ 16.Kf8! Qb4+ 17.Ke8 Qb5+ 18.Kd8 Qd5+ 19.Qd7! Qg5+ 20.Kc7 Qc5+ 21.Qc6 Qe5+ 22.Kc8 Qh8+ 23.Kb7 Qe5 24.Ka6 a4 25.b7 Qb8 26.Kb6 a3 27.Qc7 wins.