Piece Collaboration

In this course, we will pay attention to a very interesting phase. When there are only queens and rooks over the board, the game becomes very sharp. The king’s safety is something crucial and the simple movement of a pawn can change everything. At the same time, the possible exchanges, especially the queen exchange, can make a 360 degrees turn on the position. If at some point we were attacking, suddenly it is time to enter a rook endgame. These endgames many times are difficult to evaluate. 

I’ve analyzed more than 100 games on this topic and I’ve made a selection with the most important moments. I will try to explain to you the main ideas using model games. This course will have two parts: 

1st part (3 hours): Alekhine’s legacy. I remember many years ago Grandmaster Marin wrote a book about the Chess Legends and one chapter was about Alekhine and the phase we will study in this course. Marin was totally right, Alekhine was consciously trying to play again and again these positions and he was winning many games, but I should admit that his opponents (even Capablanca!) didn’t put a very good resistance and they missed many important ideas. During these three hours we will have a look at his game with the most interesting moments.

2nd part (3 hours): Modern play: In the second part we will have a look at modern games played by Carlsen and others. We will see how these players learned a lot from Alekhine and what new things they were implementing in their games. 

You will see during this course that tactical sharpness is a must in these endgames, so be ready for that. At the same time, you will learn some little positional ideas, like: Be careful when you move your e and f pawns (you can create weaknesses on the seventh rank), pay attention to rook’s activity, find the most active place for them and much more!