Lichess

Antichess: The Zugzwangs and Intermediates

cFlour

2 Dec 2021806 viewsEnglish (US)

Lichess Chess variant Tactics Strategy Analysis

How to force your opponent into Zugzwang? How to do Intermediate moves?

I'll answer those questions later. First of all, let us understand what are Zugzwangs and Intermediate moves.

Zugzwang

Zugzwang is a position when you or your opponent have no good moves left (i.e. all moves lose the game or give the opposite player a huge advantage).

Example:

This is a classic Zugzwang in Antichess. Here, believe it or not, the best move is a8=N. Here is how it works:

In the final position (when the black king and rook were next to each other), the king couldn't move further backwards. So, white wins.

Zwischenzug (Intermediate Moves)

I think firebatprime may explain this better than me, as he is the king of intermediate moves, but I'll try to explain this concept. Please forgive me if I get some facts wrong.

Intermediate moves (in Antichess) is a series of multiple captures by both players where if the person capturing second wins the game, its a proper Zwischenzug. If the person capturing first wins, its a failed Zwischenzug.
Example:

(Credit to @Pinni7)
Here, obviously white cannot unprotect the pawn. So, white has to try for an intermediate move. Try finding it.

If you guessed Qh1 Bxc3 Qxh6 Bxd2 Qxh8 Bxe3 Qxe8 Bd2 Qe3 Bxe3#, you are right. Here, its important to remember that Qh4 won't work instead of Qh1 as black can do Bxh4 instead. This is one of the rare Queen vs Bishop Exceptions.

How to search for Zugzwangs and Zwischenzugs?

So now you know what Zugzwangs and Zwischenzugs are. So naturally your next question would be how to search if I can play a zugzwang or zwischenzug. I'll give you an example of how I searched for a good zwischenzug. Hopefully it inspires you to find really good zugzwangs.

This is a position from a game between me and FM @Paparama.

Here, I knew I couldn't unprotect the h2 pawn. So I searched for an intermediate. Now, its important to count the pieces while going for intermediates. So, I counted them like this:

So, the bishop has to take 3 pieces, and after Rc1, my rook too has to take 3 pieces. Also, the black king and the h7 pawn are both double protected by the rook and the knight. As once the bishop and my rook complete capturing the 3 pieces, my h-file rook will be open so it would be forced to capture on h7. Hence, its neccesary to count h7 as part of the intermediate too. Once the dust settles, I imagined what the position would look like in my mind, and it turned out to be a winning position for white. So, the intermediate works.