In closing let’s take a look at a couple of games of former world champion Smyslov when he had the queen vrs the rook. Here is how white wins against the best possible black moves:Īnd white picks off the black rook next move. It is very instructive to play thru this variation. According to the tablebases, white has 15 moves that lead to a win, 1 that draws, and 7 moves that lose. White has 23 possible moves in this position. White will need to push the black king to either the corner or the edge. Now we come back to our original position that started this discussion. In this example white will push black to the edge and finally win the rook. In most cases you will do what you see here. Every position will have it’s own special circumstances that you have to figure out. No matter what example I show you, I can not cover every possible situation. White either stalemates or loses his queen. However, there is great danger here to white. White has indeed pushed black to the edge of the board and seems to be on the way to win. One of the most common mistakes is the following position: Against the rook the method is still the same but way more difficult. The other way is to pick off the piece with a check. One is to force the opposing king to the corner or edge of the board and mate the king even though his piece is near. In other queen vrs a single piece endings, there are two ways to win. This time Browne won.Īccording to ChessBase most GMs are not able to win against perfect defense of the computer using tablebases. After 45 moves, Browne realized that he would not be able to win within 50 moves, according to the 50 move rule.Ī month later, and after much study, they played another match.
BELLE would be using a new fangled contraption called a tablebase. Old timers, like me, remember back in 1978, when GM Walter Browne was challenged by the computer BELLE in the queen vrs rook ending. The queen vrs rook endgame was one of the first endgames completely solved by computers using an endgame tablebase.įor information on tablebases check out my article: In this defense, the side with the rook places it on the third rank and tries to prevent the opposing king to penetrate. We have talked about The Philidor position, or 3rd rank defense, but that was in rook and pawn endings.įor information on The Philidor position concerning rook and pawns, check out my article:Įndgame Fundamentals: The Philidor Positionīut this type defense can also come up in queen vrs rook endings as well. The “third-rank defense” by the rook is the most difficult for a human to crack. One reason that it is so difficult, is that not only is it difficult to figure out over the board, you are usually low on time at the end of the game and you only have 50 moves to do it due to the 50 move rule in chess. In 1895 Edward Freeborough had an entire 130 (!!) page book of analysis of this endgame: “The Chess Ending, King & Queen against King & Rook”. If the defending side can keep the rook near the king without getting checkmated, it can draw.” He said: “The queen can win if it can force the rook away from the king, with double threats of checkmating the king, and forking rook and king. In fact, former world champion Capablanca noted that this was the hardest of all the pawnless endgames to win. Queen vrs rook ending is probably one of the hardest of all winnable endings. Last month in my article “Tough Ending”, we finished with the following endgame position to work on, the infamous Queen vs.
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