Rook Endgames #1

One of the books I'm going to be studying from is Silman's Complete Endgame Course by Jeremy Silman. I've read some of the book before, but not for many years, so in part I will be recapping areas of the book I have already read. Silman breaks the topics down by rating level, giving only what he believes to be the most useful material at each level. I will be slightly restructuring this to take similar types of endgames from a range of levels, at least for the material I have previously studied. I am also using the tablebases at https://syzygy-tables.info/ to help me study variants of the positions Silman gives.

The idea of the blog posts is to help me remember the material and integrate it into my own play. I will be starting with some ideas for rook endgames, beginning with rook v pawn and moving on to rook v rook (I skipped rook vs king as I already know this part perfectly well). The text is my own.

Rook vs Pawn

Black to move
Black wins by Rb4 and nothing else. The idea is to cut the White king off from advancing down the board. White can try shuffling his king around to stay as close to the pawn as possible, in which case Black will bring his own king over to support. Alternatively, White can try advancing the pawn - but once the gap gets big enough Black can take it with the rook (for example, 1. ... Rb4 2. g6 Kb2 3. g7 Rb8! and the White king is too far away to support the pawn, or 1. ... Rb4 2. g6 Rb6 and either Black takes the pawn next move or he moves behind it with 3. g7 Rg6). The same ideas apply if the pawn is on the d, e, f or h file - as long as there is room for the rook to cut the king off from the advance with Rb4

The position is a little different with the King and pawn on the c-file

Here Black must use his King instead, playing 1. ... Ka2. The same idea applies if the pawn becomes too far advanced from the White king (say 2. c6 Rb6! and Black is behind the pawn again); otherwise, Black must bring his king to help control the queening square, and as Black only moves the king while White moves king and pawn, Black has time to catch the pawn, taking with his rook once the king is there for backup.

Now for a couple of positions where the Black king has not gone completely onto the far side of the board

Black to move, White wins

The White king can get control of the queening square in time to prevent Black promoting (1. ... Ke2 2. Kb3 d2 3. Kc2)

Black to move, White still wins

The White king and rook can combine to get the White king into position, for example 1. ... Ke2 2. Re8+ Kd1 3. Kf2 d2 4. Rd8 Kc2 5. Ke2 and White once again controls the queening square.

With those relatively simple rook vs pawn positions out of the way, we move on to a couple of basic rook vs rook positions, which form building blocks for later, more complex positions.

I'm then going to move on to a couple of basic building-block rook vs rook positions.

The Lucena Position

The Lucena Position is a simplified position where one side has a rook and a non-rook pawn on the 7th with the king in front of its pawn and the other side has only a rook

White has two objectives (move the king off the promotion square, promote). White's important move is 1. Rf2+ - 1. ... Ke6 then allows Ke8 and the White king is protected from check by the Black king so Black goes with 1. ... Kg7. White's best move is to play 2. Rf4 - this is the thematic move for this position (other moves don't lose - even dumping the rook off is still a theoretical draw - but White will end up cycling back to the Rf4 idea, so might as well play it now)

The line proceeds with any non-trivial rook move, let's say 2. .. Rc2 3. Ke7 Re2+ 4. Kd6 Rd2+ 5. Ke6 Re2+ 6. Kd5 Rd2+ 7. Rd4!

This manoeuvre is called Building a Bridge (I don't know if this is Silman's term or a general one - Silman enjoys giving things funny names) - without unprotecting the pawn, White brings the king around and uses the rook as a shield against the final check from the Black rook.

From here Black has no more access to the queening square and White will win.

Consider then the below position

White wins from here with Re2, leading to a Lucena-type position as his king helps the pawn down the board and grabs control of the queening square. White is winning here with his king almost anywhere on the queenside - as long as he can get to the queening square before the Black king (and thus is his king is in a natural position on the kingside, like g1, he is too far away - an idea White might want to have considered earlier in the game).

The Philidor Position

Draw!

The key idea is to deny the White king access to the 6th rank with Rh6

The line given in the book is 1. ... Rh6 2. Rg7+ Ke8 3. Ra7 Rg6 - the Black rook prevents the White king from making progress towards the promotion square

4. e6 Rg1

White has nowhere to hide when Black starts checking him.

Silman summarises (pg 131) the rules for this position as

"The defender's drawing plan in the Philidor position is to use his Rook to block the stronger side's king from stepping onto the rank in front of the pawn. Go back and forth with the rook until the pawn is pushed, destroying the enemy king's pawn cover. Then go to the back rank (putting as much distance as possible between the defending rook and the enemy king) and begin checking."