The ever new Rook and Pawn Endgames

"All Rook Endgames are drawn"- Siegbert Tarrasch

Alireza Firouzja has been stealing all the limelight in the Chess world recently and rightly so too! He is the youngest to reach 2800 ever and has catapulted himself to the second spot in World Rankings. His final round game against Shakriyar Mamedyarov drew a lot of attention among the spectators, as if he could win he would reach 2800 and also would be increasing a whopping 30 points in the European Team Championship tournament alone! As luck would have it he reached a Rook and Pawn endgame with 2 pawns to Shak's 1. It was not such a common Rook endgame to say the least. Nevertheless as Tarrasch remarked the drawing tendencies in Rook endgames should never be underestimated. But that does not mean that players can play them without errors. Let us catch up with the game a few moves earlier.

Color Complex in Chess

"முதல் எனப்படுவது நிலம் பொழுது இரண்டின்

இயல்பென மொழிப இயல்புணர்ந் தோரே"

(பொருளதிகாரம் அகத்திணையியல் தொல்காப்பியம்)

Roughly translated this deep statement of  sage Tholkappiyar ( dating to at least 4000 years ago) goes, "The inherent tendencies of Space and Time are the fundamentals- thus say the realized ones." 

Applying this concept to Chess, Space consists of squares and Time consists of the move at hand. Time has varied other applications, so I will stick to looking at space in the present article.  

The concept of Space (squares) in chess is one of the hardest to comprehend and one which would enhance the perception level of a player greatly. Understanding squares in one's own way is always enriching and this can be a continual journey in learning even by visiting games which are previously known too. For example I was recently browsing through the game Von Gottschall- Nimzowitsch, Hannover 1926 from the book Chess Praxis. The following position occurred after White's 18th move.

Not an everyday position in an Isolated Queen Pawn structure, but the basic ideas still remain the same. Black has the Bishop pair in the endgame, but he is  bit behind in development. White has more control of the key d5-square and threatens to play the d4-d5 pawn break. This gives a clue on how Black should continue to keep the game going. He continued with: