Kenilworth Kibitzer

One of the best free resources for chess improvement has got to be Dan Heisman's "Novice Nook" column at ChessCafe. Dan is nearing his 100th article (which we should see next month), and you can access the first 99 via the ChessCafe archives. This month's article, "The Endgame Bind," offers the interesting position above, asking "How many plans are reasonable?" I found it most interesting that the least complicated plan -- and the one that human players will hit on pretty quickly (and masters will see in an instant) -- is not the one preferred by computers, since it requires too many ply to see to the end. But humans can leap over the ply with various grouping techniques, such as the rule of being able to catch a pawn if you are "inside the square of the pawn." A fun puzzle for developing players, and another great article from Dan Heisman.

Labels: chess cafe, dan heisman, endgame