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Let’s take a week to inspect our trivial endings knowledge. So, not all of the following seven puzzles will start that way, but you can expect that they will end in: 2 elemental bishop endings, 2 elemental knight endings, 2 elemental queen vs pawn endings and 1 (sort of) all-in-one elemental ending 🙂 White to […]
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Owing to the flexibility of the knight’s leap and possibility of approaching the target by two different routes, it is advisable, as a rule, to wait for the knight’s reaction by playing a useful pawn move rather than show one’s intentions by moving the king immediately. This is a study by F. Prokop, 1925.
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Black faces more serious problems when a well-positioned enemy king makes the knight approach to the pawn difficult. Although the white pawn is far from the promotion square, Black’s position seems desperate since the shortest route to the a-pawn is not available to the knight. Yet, Black to move draws by means of astonishing […]
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The battle between the knight and a rook’s pawn is the most dramatic. If the knight cannot stop it before the seventh rank, then salvation can only be brought about by setting up an impenetrable barrier as in examples 261 and 268. A very instructive study on the theme was composed by N. Grigoriev […]
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Occasionally, when the king is sufficiently near, the salvation may be also brought about by checking from a “forbidden” square. It appears as though if Black’s defeat were unavoidable since after 1…Nf5+? 2.Kc7 the pawn queens irresistibly.
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In an analogous position with a pawn at least on the c-file Black easily draws since the knight can control the promotion square from either side.
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Although the most unfavourable situation for the knight involves a position with a rook’s pawn on the seventh rank, the knight may set up a sufficiently resistant barricade and draw provided its king is not too far away. Owing to the specific geometry of the knight’s leap as well as the peculiarity of double […]
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When the enemy king is locked-in by its own pawn on the rim of the chess-board, the knight can sometimes spin a mating net. We have already seen one such simple position in the introductory example 263. A somewhat more complex case is shown in a study by A. Troitzky. ← Basic EndingsBasic […]
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When the pawn has not advanced too far, the knight can stop it most of the time despite its very unfavourable position. A brilliant example on the theme is the conclusion of a study by N. Grigoriev (1938). Black to move draws although White threatens to push away the knight deep to the rear. […]
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Despite being short-legged, the knight manages in most cases to catch up with and stop the outside passed pawn. Occasionally in this race the bad position of the enemy king plays a crucial role allowing the knight to gain the decisive tempo. ← Basic EndingsBasic Endings →
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