my new favorite position
ok, so i learned the lucena postion. apparently i’m the last human on earth to learn this, and it’s the most important thing in chess ever. by knowing this position, i will win all my games, my teeth will straiten and whiten, i will have a full head of thick luscious hair like fabio, all the chicks will dig me, and all the guys will buy me beers and want to be my friend.
it looks like this with white to move:
it’s all about building a bridge too far over the river kwai in madison county. white moves Rf2+, black king moves to g7, then what does white do? he moves his rook to f4. F FUCKING 4!!!! of all the squares on the board to move to, f4 is the right one. this keeps the black king out of the way, and lets the white king make like he is on the price is right and “come on down” to d5, so the pawn can get to across the border to mexico and become a queen.
so how many times will this ever come up in games? i don’t’ think i’ve ever seen this position before, ever, yet it is the most important position in the universe. ok, so now that i know this, do i play for this position? do i trade everything down and march my king up in front of my pawn and get my rook where he needs to be and then force this position into reality? is this something i keep in the back of my mind, and when i’m given an option to take a d pawn or have a pawn on d, think “well, with my pawn on the d file, i can get to the lucena position.”
also, since everyone knows this, they know what to do, and they should know how to prevent it. right?
i do love the concept of bridging the king and rook, i like the whole “opposition” with the kings and the pawn, it is all kind of slowly coming together a bit for me, and i love that i now know this position.
i just wonder now that i know it, what do i do with it?
Blue Devil Knigh said,
April 29, 2008 at 12:10 pm
It is a beautiful position. They say it is useful in practice (e.g., gives you something to aim for and all that jazz), but frankly I have never really needed it. The only theoretical endgames I’ve used a lot in practice are K/P and mating against the lone king. I’m sure as my rating goes up that will change, but all my games are either decided by basic tactics or K/P endgame theory that comes in handy. I guess if I knew more endgame theory I’d steer toward more of them, and end up with more of them, so don’t listen to my patzer ass.
My coach told me to learn four rook endgames to basically know all I need to know in the theory side, I wrote about it here.
Sciurus said,
April 29, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Here’s some bad news for you, and it is even a double whammy:
1) you are really the last one to learn the Lucena position, because I learnt it last week!
2) What do you do with it? Well, obviously I don’t know how important it is in practice. After all, I only learnt it last week. But here is the answer anyway: you forget it! I looked at your post, thought “hey, I know that one” and then “shit, how did this work again?” and of course I HAD to take a peek at the rest of the post…
David K, Seattle said,
April 29, 2008 at 2:01 pm
what do i do with it as an activity or process, as distinct from a position?
one way is to not overdose and try to learn one of these per day, nor forget the activity, and acquiese, as it were to inactivity.
if you learn one of these key endgame positions per week, according ot Dvoretsky, you can have forty key endgame nodules in your kit of chess knowledge, and by Christmas have a lot of good stuff downloaded and assymilated. You have the Silman book, which is just as well…
you dont need or want a bunch of advise, i think, so just to sugges the gradualist approach. i forgot about my forth blog for a LONG time. now, each day i am writing for 15 to 30 minutes, and will do so for a year, and it adds up bit by bit, doesnt need to be large scale, but small doses add up rapidly.
Polly said,
April 29, 2008 at 6:55 pm
It will come up in some time pressure situation where your mind will go blank, and you won’t remember how to do this. I’ve been on the losing side of it thinking I can hold for a draw, and bam! My opponent knows what he’s doing and executes it perfectly.
Sigh, another loss for the books.
Chris Harrington said,
April 29, 2008 at 10:15 pm
This endgame is practical. In fact just consider that when you’re up a pawn trade pieces. Which is a general rule. This is how to force the win…here is where it is practical. Because guys like me will be trying to set up the Black position which draws.
the “Philidor Position” second most important rook endgame to know!
We know that with Black we need to get our King in front of your pawn and bring our rook to the 3rd rank….I’m glad you are learning the endgame!
n8ux said,
April 30, 2008 at 5:32 am
I thought this sounded familiar - there was a youtube video on “how to reach Lucena” -
http://n8ux.wordpress.com/2007/11/08/lets-assess-this-position/
Pawned!
chessloser said,
April 30, 2008 at 7:53 am
BDK - well, i have two of the four rook endgames you posted about, i’ll learn the other two, and then i’ll focus on king pawn stuff. thanks. patzer or not, you know more than me so i listen to what you say…
sciurus - damn, i was one week too late. i bet even though you forgot it, once you went over it, it reinforced the knowledge, and now you will know it forever….
david - that would be a good goal, learn one position a week, LEARN it, know it in my bones, gradually, so over time i have them….
polly - so you’ve actually seen this in play? loss or not, that is cool if you’ve actually seen this….
chris - i’m glad i’m learning it as well…i didn’t realize exactly how much it matters until now…
n8ux - dude, you are so amazing, you have a video clip for everything! cool clip too, thanks…
Anonymous said,
April 30, 2008 at 11:19 am
I once wasted about a week learning the BN mate against lone king. It is a beautiful mate.
The next week, I was up four pawns, B and N against some pawns. I gobbled the pawns of his, gave him my pawns, just to see if I could pull off the mate in a real game. Other than that, I’ve never had to use the B/N mate.
One thing I really like about Dostoskiaotaivi’s Endgame encyclopedia is that he actually gives the relative frequency of endgame positions reached in actual games. The rook pawn endgames come up a lot (in GM games anyway). Though frankly I’ve never used Lucena, Philidor, encircling maneuver, or the other hard one in practice.
chessloser said,
April 30, 2008 at 11:35 am
anonymous - that’s pretty damn cool that you actually got to use what you learned on someone, cool story. since you used it, i guess you didn’t’ waste that week…. as for the rook stuff, i shall study them, just so i know them, just in case….
blunderprone said,
April 30, 2008 at 1:51 pm
I’ve used theLP only ONCE…
Philidor’s position I’ve run into more often.
Corridor mate shows up a lot. ( R and N)
Chris said,
April 30, 2008 at 3:22 pm
About the Knight vs. Bishop mate….it is rare but for us players who aren’t masters you need to learn it because there are quite a few situations where your opponent will sacrifice into that ending and make you prove you know how to do it. At our Chess club Kevin Gafni saced into it and another A-class player couldn’t mate him….so it is something to know down the line…but not for a D or C player.
I see Philidor happen in the Club pretty often.