Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual Read online

  Dvoretsky’s

  Endgame

  Manual

  Fourth Edition

  by

  Mark Dvoretsky

  Foreword by Artur Yusupov

  Preface by Jacob Aagaard

  2014

  Russell Enterprises, Inc.

  Milford, CT USA

  Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual

  Fourth Edition

  © Copyright 2003, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2014

  Mark Dvoretsky

  ISBN: 978-1-941270-04-2

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book maybe used, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any manner or form whatsoever or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  First Edition 2003

  Second Edition, First Printing 2006

  Second Edition, Second Printing 2008

  Third Edition 2011

  Fourth Edition 2014

  Published by:

  Russell Enterprises, Inc.

  PO Box 3131

  Milford, CT 06460 USA

  http://www.russell-enterprises.com

  [email protected]

  Cover design by Pamela Terry, Opus 1 Design

  Back cover photograph of Mark Dvoretsky by Carl G. Russell

  Printed in the United States of America

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Preface

  From the Author (First Edition)

  From the Author (Second Edition)

  Publisher’s Note to the Third Edition

  From the Author (Fourth Edition)

  Other Signs, Symbols, and Abbreviations

  Chapter 1 Pawn Endgames

  Key Squares

  Corresponding Squares

  Opposition

  Mined Squares

  Triangulation

  Other Cases of Correspondence

  King vs. Passed Pawns

  The Rule of the Square

  Réti’s Idea

  The Floating Square

  Three Connected Pawns

  Queen vs. Pawns

  Knight or Center Pawn

  Rook or Bishop’s Pawn

  Pawn Races

  The Active King

  Zugzwang

  Widening the Beachhead

  The King Routes

  Zigzag

  The Pendulum

  Shouldering

  Breakthrough

  The Outside Passed Pawn

  Two Rook’s Pawns with an Extra Pawn on the Opposite Wing

  The Protected Passed Pawn

  Two Pawns to One

  Multi-Pawn Endgames

  Undermining

  Two Connected Passed Pawns

  Stalemate

  The Stalemate Refuge

  “Semi-Stalemate”

  Reserve Tempi

  Exploiting Reserve Tempi

  Steinitz’s Rule

  The g- and h-Pawns vs. the h-Pawn

  The f- and h-Pawns vs. the h-Pawn

  Both Sides have Reserve Tempi

  Chapter 2 Knights versus Pawns

  King in the Corner

  Mate

  Drawn Positions

  Knight vs. Rook’s Pawn

  The Knight Defends the Pawn

  Chapter 3 Knight Endgames

  The Deflecting Knight Sacrifice

  Botvinnik’s Formula

  Pawns on the Same Side

  Chapter 4 Bishop versus Pawns

  The Elementary Fortresses

  Bishop and Rook’s Pawn

  Pawns at h6 and h7

  Pawns at g6 and g7

  Bishop at h7 and Pawn at g6

  Bishop vs. Disconnected Pawns

  Bishop vs. Connected Pawns

  Chapter 5 Opposite-color Bishops

  The Most Important Rules

  Bishop and Two Connected Pawns vs. Bishop

  Separated Passed Pawns

  The King Blockades the Passed Pawn

  The Bishop Restrains the Passed Pawn

  Chapter 6 Bishops of the Same Color

  Minimal Material

  Bishop and Pawn vs. Bishop

  Transposition to Positions with One Pawn

  Interference

  The Bad Bishop

  Fixing Pawns

  Zugzwang

  Pawns Which Do Not “Play by the Rules”

  Barrier

  Chapter 7 Bishop versus Knight

  Bishop and Pawn vs. Knight

  Knight and Pawn vs. Bishop

  The Bishop is Superior to the Knight

  Cutting the Knight Off

  Fixing the Pawns

  The Passed Pawn

  An Open Position, A More Active King

  Defensive Methods with a Knight against a Bishop

  The Knight is Superior to the Bishop

  Domination and Knight Forks

  Fixing the Pawns

  Closed Position, Bad Bishop

  Chapter 8 Rook versus Pawns

  Rook vs. Pawn

  “Moving Downstairs”

  Cutting the King Off

  Pawn Promotion to a Knight

  Stalemate

  An Intermediate Check for a Gain of Tempo

  Shouldering

  Outflanking

  Rook vs. Connected Pawns

  Rook vs. Separated Pawns

  Chapter 9 Rook Endgames

  Rook and Pawn vs. Rook

  The Pawn on the Seventh Rank

  The Pawn on the Sixth Rank

  The Pawn on the Fifth Rank

  The Umbrella

  The Pawn Has Not Crossed the Mid-line

  A Rook and a Rook’s Pawn vs. a Rook

  The King is in Front of Its Own Pawn

  The Rook is in Front of the Pawn and the Pawn Is on the Seventh Rank

  The Rook is in Front of the Pawn and the Pawn Is on the Sixth Rank

  a- and h-Pawns

  A Rook and Two Pawns vs. a Rook

  Doubled Pawns

  Connected Pawns

  f- and h-Pawns

  Other Pairs of Disconnected Pawns

  A Far Advanced Passed Pawn

  Transition to a Rook vs. Pawns Endgame

  Lasker’s Idea

  A Rook and Two Pawns vs. a Rook and Pawn

  All Pawns are on the Same Wing

  Pawns on Opposite Wings

  Disconnected Pawns, One of them is Passed

  Four Pawns vs. Three on the Same Wing

  Balance on One Wing and an Extra Pawn on Another

  The Rook Behind its Own Pawn

  The Rook in Front of the Pawn, with the Pawn on the Seventh Rank

  The Rook in Front of the Pawn, with the Pawn on the Sixth Rank

  A Knight’s Pawn

  The Rook at the Side of the Pawn

  Common Observations about Endgames with Many Pawns

  The Rook’s Activity

  The King’s Activity

  King on the Edge

  Cutting the King Off

  Akiba Rubinstein’s Masterpiece

  Chapter 10 Rook versus Knight

  The Lone Knight

  Rook and Pawn vs. Knight and Pawn

  Multi-Pawn Endgames

  Pawns on One Side of the Board

  Pawns on Both Sides

  When the Knight is Stronger than the Rook

  Chapter 11 Rook versus Bishop

  The Lone Bishop

  The Dangerous Corner

  The Safe Corner

  A Bishop’s Pawn

  Rook and Pawn vs. Bishop and Pawn

  The Pawns are on the
Same File or on Adjacent Files

  Rook Pawns

  Two Pawns vs. Two on the Same Wing

  Three Pawns vs. Three on the Same Wing

  Chapter 12 Queen Endgames

  Queen and Pawn vs. Queen

  Winning Tactical Tricks

  Defensive Tactics

  Pawns on the Same Wing

  A Passed Pawn

  An Active Queen

  Chapter 13 Queen versus Rook

  A Solitary Rook

  Queen vs. Rook and Pawn

  The Rook behind the Pawn

  The Pawn on the Seventh Rank

  The Pawn on the Sixth Rank

  A Knight Pawn on the Fifth or Sixth Rank

  Queen and Pawn vs. Rook and Pawn

  Passed Pawns

  Pawns on Adjacent Files

  A Fortress with Multiple Pawns

  Chapter 14 Other Material Relations

  Two Extra Pieces

  Checkmating with Bishop and Knight

  Checkmating with Two Knights

  Rook and Knight vs. Rook

  Rook and Bishop vs. Rook

  Without Pawns

  With Pawns

  An Extra Bishop or Knight with Queens or Minor Pieces

  Rook vs. Two Minor Pieces

  Queen vs. Various Pieces

  Queen vs. Two Rooks

  Chapter 15 General Endgame Ideas

  King’s Activity

  Pawn Power

  Zugzwang

  Fortresses

  A Fortified Camp

  A Pawn Barrier

  An Imprisoned King

  An Imprisoned Piece

  Binding

  Stalemate

  Checkmate

  Domination

  Chapter 16 Solutions

  Bibliography

  Indexes

  Index of Players

  Index of Composers and Analysts

  Index of Strategic and Tactical Techniques

  Foreword

  My cooperation and friendship with Mark Dvoretsky has already lasted almost 30 years. He was more than just a coach or second. He was my most important chess teacher. I owe my greatest victories to him and we are still in contact with each other quite often.

  Mark has developed a method that can catapult a talented player from Elo 2200 to grandmaster level in 4 to 5 years. An important part of this procedure is the study of the endgame. Mark firmly believes that endgame technique is of universal value. He recognized this when he prepared several endgame sessions for the education of prospective Russian chess trainers. At first he thought that the job was routine work, only requiring him to write down what he already knew. But suddenly he realized that he was playing better!

  I also believe in the interactive effect of endgame study. It makes it easier to judge and use the potential of the pieces and to understand their interaction. So not only our endgame technique, but also our intuition and positional understanding are refined. In the endgame, plans must be found all the time – so it sharpens our strategic eye as well.

  So I was very happy when Mark told me two years ago, that he was planning to write an endgame manual. Now this work by one of the world’s leading endgame specialists has appeared and you can enjoy the fruits of his labor. I am sure that those who study this work carefully will not only play the endgame better, but overall, their play will improve. One of the secrets of the Russian chess school is now before you, dear reader!

  International Grandmaster Artur Yusupov

  Weissenhorn

  September 2003

  Preface

  The first time I heard about the book you are now holding in your hands was in the summer of 2000, when Mark Dvoretsky was giving lectures in Copenhagen for a group of the best Danish players. I had only just been able to put my jaw back in place after being rushed through a rook ending I was badly prepared to understand. What had fascinated me most was not that rook endings could be explained the way Mark explained them, but that the simplicity of dicta like the rook should always be active had such far reaching practical implications. Hey, I can actually understand this! was the thought running through my head. The game Flohr-Vidmar, Nottingham 1936 (p. 227) especially impressed me. Mark then told us that he was indeed working on a new book on the endgame, a comprehensive manual which would be finished within a year.

  In fact it took far more than a year, and to be honest, I am not really sure that Mark will ever finish his work with this book – or that he should. In the summer of 2002 the German version, titled Die Endspieluniversität, was published. And I am the proud owner of the first ever signed copy of the book I called The best chess book ever written in a 10-page review in the Swedish chess magazine Schacknytt.

  Since the book was released (and I wrote my review) I have worked with it, in both my own training and my work with juniors, and I have come to the following conclusion: Going through this book will certainly improve your endgame knowledge, but just as important, it will also greatly improve your ability to calculate variations. In particular, the section on pawn endings has convinced me that solving studies and pawn endings should be an important part of my pre-tournament training (and when am I not preparing for the next tournament?). So the book is practical indeed, more so than any other book in my extensive library.

  But there is another point, just as important, regarding the general sense of aesthetics in the book. The studies, both those selected and those created by the author himself, are not just instructive, but some of the finest studies I have ever seen.

  But what really impresses me is the deep level of analysis in the book. Rules and techniques are important for the practical player in the development of ability, but if the analysis is less than thorough, it is hard to really get into the text. Improvements have been found to the analysis of the German edition and incorporated into the English edition and Mark is always ready to discuss and improve his analysis with anyone. He understands fully that a book has a life and rights of its own. Greatness is possible, but perfection may not be. I must admit that I personally feel as if Shakespeare asked me to write a foreword to Hamlet, and yes, I must admit that I suffer from a lot of confusion as to why he did this. All I can say is: This is a great book. I hope it will bring you as much pleasure as it has me.

  International Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard

  Copenhagen

  September 2003

  From the Author (First Edition)

  Endgame theory is not a complicated subject to study!

  All one needs is thorough knowledge of a limited number of “precise” positions (as a rule, elementary ones) plus some of the most important principles, evaluations, and standard techniques. The question is, how to select the most important material from the thousands of endings analyzed in various handbooks? That is why this book was written: it offers the basic information you need as the foundation of your own personal endgame theory.

  As long ago as 1970, when I was just a young chess master and a student at Moscow University, I was unexpectedly invited to give some endgame lectures to the chess faculty of the Moscow High School for Sports. It was then that I had to think about what exactly a practical chess player must study. I defined sound methods of studying endgame theory (from the point of view of logic, rather obvious ones) and prepared examples of the most important types of endgames (pawn, rook-and-pawn endgames, and those with opposite-color bishops). I also prepared a series of lectures on the general principles of endgame play. By the way, the main ideas of that series became (with my permission) the basis of the popular book Endgame Strategy by Mikhail Shereshevsky (I recommend that book to my readers).

  Later on, these materials, continually corrected and enlarged, were used in teaching numerous apprentices. They proved to be universal and useful for players of widely different levels: from ordinary amateurs to the world’s leading grandmasters. My work with grandmasters, some of them belonging to the world’s Top Ten, have convinced me that almost none of them had studied chess endings systematicall
y. They either did not know or did not remember many important endgame positions and ideas, which can be absorbed even by those of relatively modest chess experience. As a result, even among grandmasters, grave errors occur even in elementary situations: you will find plenty of examples in this book. Some grandmasters asked me to help them, and our studies resulted usually in a substantial improvement of their tournament achievements. Two weeks of intensive study were usually more than enough to eliminate the gaps in their endgame education.

  So, what will you find in this book?

  Precise positions. This is our term for concrete positions – positions with a minimum number of pawns, which should be memorized and which will serve as guideposts again and again in your games.

  The hardest part of preparing this book was deciding which positions to include and which to leave out. This required rejection of many examples that were intrinsically interesting and even instructive, but of little practical value. Common sense dictates that effort should be commensurate to the expected benefit. Human memory is limited, so there is no sense in filling it up with rarely-seen positions that will probably never occur in our actual games. One should study relatively few positions, the most important and most probable, but study and understand them perfectly. One should not remember long and perplexing analyses. We may never have an opportunity to reproduce them in our games, and we will certainly forget them sooner or later. Our basic theoretical knowledge must be easy to remember and comprehend. Some complicated positions are also important, but we may absorb their general evaluations and basic ideas, plus perhaps a few of their most important lines only.

  The positions that I consider part of the basic endgame knowledge system are shown by diagrams and comments in blue print. If the explanatory notes are too complicated or less important the print is black; these positions are also useful but there is not much sense in committing them to memory.

  Endgame ideas. These represent, of course, the most significant part of endgame theory. Study of certain endgame types can be almost fully reduced to absorbing ideas (general principles, standard methods and evaluations) rather than to memorizing precise positions.

  When discussing precise positions, we will certainly point out the endgame ideas in them. But many standard ideas transcend any particular precise position. These ideas should be absorbed with the help of schemata – very simple positions where a technique or a tool works in a distilled form and our attention is not distracted by any analysis of side lines. Over the course of time we may forget the precise shape of a schema but will still remember the technique. Another method of absorbing endgame ideas is to study practical games or compositions where the ideas have occurred in the most attractive form.