Blindfold Endgame Visualisation 22/50

#22, Cunnington E., 1908

This week’s study makes for an excellent milestone position. A very good guide for where you are in terms of endgame knowledge and skill.

Should is an overused word, in chess and in life, but I’m going to be bold and say this:-

Anybody who is serious about chess improvement should aspire to being able to solve position 22 from Blindfold Chess Improvement.

First and foremost, it’s about knowledge. With a little bit of endgame theory under your belt - the opposition; understanding that from the starting position if Black’s pawn were ever to fall White would have a forced win* - the solution isn’t difficult to find.

Second there’s skill. You may know where the solution is to be found but can you work out your route there in your head? King and pawn positions make perfect training positions for calculation skills. This is for the same reason that your first maths lessons were single digit addition and subtraction sums and not quadratic equations.

So everybody should be attempting to be able to solve this week’s study. That doesn’t mean there’s any shame at all if you can’t at the moment. All you need to do now is work out where you fell short.

Didn’t know about the theory? No problem. Go look it up. Struggled with the calculation? This is a very good sign of where you need to direct some of your training time in future weeks and months.

Hey presto. You’re on your way to chess improvement. 

* even if Black could then take the opposition immediately with … Kc8. And if you know that you also need to know that the result would depend on who was to move with the same set up but with White’s pawn on the fourth rank rather than the fifth.

OUTCOME: Solved

RUNNING TOTAL: 18/22