Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: Destroyed Fortress

In last week’s post I presented the case of a destroyed fortress. Artashes Minasian, the player conducting the black pieces, missed the chance of building an early fortress because he reasoned that a previous trade of rooks would make the task easier. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Moreover, at the final stage of the game, he also missed the chance to offer a more stubborn defense. I mentioned that Black had chances of holding but I didn’t explain how to proceed. In today’s post you will learn the secret.

As you see, the method for winning is quite easy to understand. But facing such an endgame over the board and successfully playing it, requires a clear image of what is important. If the strong side doesn’t know or is unable to find the right plan, then the defending side has chances to hold and present a stubborn defense.

I’m sure that not many club players would be able to succeed. So, what is the lesson? Learning openings is fine. But when we face players with a similar level as ours, games will last many moves and special endgames will appear on the board. Sometimes, those endgames require previous knowledge because is extremely time-consuming to try to calculate long lines. Knowing their particular plans and tricks makes the difference and it will allow us to earn some extra points. Good luck!!

Maybe you play chess but are unable to attend a local club. If that is your case, then join our virtual Chess.com club. On our site, we regularly play online tournaments and team matches. More than 950 members enjoy that chance and new players join every week. We have new tournaments scheduled for the coming months waiting for players! Join now! Additionally, we have a puzzle section and we have recently started to practice the variant of ‘Vote Chess’. Although not very popular, ‘Vote Chess’ is an effective educational tool for learning together.