The Art of Zugzwang
Lubomir Kavalek
International Chess Grandmaster
Posted: June 2, 2010 04:59 PM
The action on the chessboard is in the moves and chess players are eager to make them. But sometimes they would rather stay put, skip a move, go for a walk and never come back. The dreaded word “zugzwang” crosses their mind and they know they are in trouble.
Zugzwang is a German word and, according to chess historians, it was introduced into English in 1904 by the world champion Emanuel Lasker.
What does it mean being in zugzwang? In simple terms, you have to move and you don’t want to. Every move you make leads to a worse position and often to an outright disaster. You see it mostly in the endgame, sometimes in the middlegame and never in the opening. It flourishes in chess compositions – in chess problems and endgame studies.
We give three examples of the zugzwang theme. Try to solve them! We will publish the solutions on Monday, June 7.
Click here to see GM Kavalek’s new article.
Nice to see him write again.
the answer to the first one is:
1. Rh6 gh6
2. g7 check mate
if 1… B anywhere Rh7 mate
Well, so far, as we know, it doesn’t happen in the opening, but let us suppose that eventually computers completely solve the game of chess and it found that that Black is in zugzwang after 1. e4.