Learn the basic chess strategies for heavy pieces on this page, as this knowledge is vital. If you have a queen and your opponent just has a pawn, you should know how to handle this position.
Just the same when you are a rook up and you have to fight the pawn. Learn these chess positions as they are common knowledge among good chess players.
Rook – Pawn Endgame
The chess endgame with rook versus one pawn can be very interesting because the king can attack the rook. This can prove disastrous in certain positions.
But if the rook can win the pawn somehow the game is won as king and rook together have mating potential, but not king and knight or king and bishop.
There are some general rules for how to place a rook.
1. Place a rook behind the opponents pawn to stop it from promoting into a queen.
2. Place a rook behind your own passed pawn to push it forward to promote it.
3. When you have rooks then open up the game as rooks want open lines..
4.Don’t misplace your rooks as they might get locked in and cannot escape.
Queen – Pawn Endgame
As the queen is much stronger than the pawn there is no real fight usually. Only in special cases has a pawn a chance of a draw. Favorable conditions are:
1.The pawn is placed on the second rank (or seventh if black)
2.The pawn is supported by his king and the king must control the promotion square.
3.The enemy king is far away.
You can win, if you give checks with the queen to force the king to move to the promotion square. After that you have one move time to come closer with your king.
You repeat this until your king is very close to the pawn. Then finally you will win the pawn. You need the help of your king.
But this procedure does not work with the a,c,f and h-pawn as there is a stalemate.
Replay and study these exercises!
Flip Board: Press F-Key (or click e7 or d2 on top) Select a game: Click on grey bar
Back to – How to win at Chess
Back to Chess Strategies – Home
How Chess Grandmaster Igor Smirnov developed his chess teaching system.