Today I’m thinking about the endgame. A student at one of our school programs recently won the Girls u14 National Championship (congrats Audrey!), and I was reflecting on what has made her a consistently successful tournament player. One thing I recalled is that relative to every level she played at, she was always a strong endgame player.
Not having her early games at hand, and her current level being far higher, it piqued my curiosity to do a chessbase search: What happens in endgames at the u1400 level? Are games being decided at this stage of the game, or is one side usually overwhelmingly winning by the time an ending is reached? And of course, I am interested in picking out instructive moments to use in my own teaching and share with our instructors. Starting with rook endgames, I didn’t have to look very hard to find a result swinging back and forth.
This game comes from the 2024 Chinese Youth Championship, between Yiyi Tong (White) and Zihan Wang (Black). The possibility of the players being extremely underrated notwithstanding, they were both under 1400 FIDE at the time this game was played.
Black is up a pawn, with a passed pawn on d4. They offered an exchange of queens with the strong 35…Qc3 when White is forced to either trade queens into a lost ending or retreat the queen and allow Black’s passed pawn to advance. 36.Qxc3 dxc3 37.Kf1 brought up a critical moment in the game.
Here there were two ways to convert the advantage:
a) 37…c2 threatens …Rd1, with unstoppable promotion. White therefore has to protect the d1 square again with 38.Ke2 when 38…Ra8! wins a second pawn. 39.Ra1 is the critical try for White, leading to a position that deserves its own diagram.
39…Rxa2! is the aesthetically pleasing idea. 40.Rxa2 c1=N+! Only the underpromotion works, since White was threatening mate! 41.Ke3 Nxa2 and Black wins with an extra knight. Returning to the critical moment:
b) 37…Ra8 was also good enough to win. After 38.Rc1 Ra3! White won’t be able to win the c-pawn because the moment the White king steps on the second rank, Black can take on a2 with check. If the player sees the direct win involving the underpromotion, they should go for that. But this exists as a backup.
Now, in the game, Black went wrong with 37…b5?.
Here 38.a3! would save the day by preventing …b4, protecting the passed pawn. Play could continue 38…Ra8 39.Rb1! Rxa3 40.Rxb5 h6 41.Rc5, actively placing the rook behind the passed pawn. Black can try here, but there is objectively no way to win.
Instead, White missed the chance and played 38.Rc1?, allowing Black to protect the passed pawn with 38…b4!
Black protects the passed pawn, after which White will get no further chances. 39.Ke1 h6 it makes sense to give the king a square. 40.h4 Rd2 This second rank rook is extremely powerful. 41.Rb1 Rxa2 42.Rxb4 Ra1+ White resigned, because they have no defense to …c2 followed by …c1=Q. Even in this superficially one-sided example, there was a key ‘double-blunder’ where the result of the game swung twice. 37…b5? (pushing the c-pawn instead was the clearest win) allowed 38.a3!, stopping Black from connecting their pawns – a missed opportunity.
Stay tuned. I will continue these endgame musings in my next post.