Hi, here is a game I played. I was trying a new opening, so it didn't go that well. Anyway my problem is with the endgame: I won but I must admit it was just luck (My opponent was in zugwang, but that wasn't because of some calculation).
How should i have played after the rook exchange? Wich kind of strategy would you have used if you were black? I feel like I basically wasted a lot of thempos.
Thank's for the help
You played well, but...
You were a pawn up, thus winning, but with 35...g4 you allowed him to take your pawn away with 35...hxg4, nullifying your advantage.
At move 39 both your kings have a standoff around the two 5th rank pawns. This is all about Zugzwang, as you correctly point out. However, your 39...a6 loses the Zugzwang battle if he had pushed 40 b6. You should have played 39...a5, when 40 bxa6 e.p. transposes to the game and wins, and 40 b6 h4, or 40 h4 b6 wins the Zugzwang battle for you. Pawn endings are all about calculation.
Thanks to both!
@tpr "Pawn endings are all about calculation." I'll remember it
Let's start the analysis after 31...Be7. That's a good square for your bishop in principle, attacking the b4 pawn and keeping the option to move either on d6 or on the d8-h4 diagonal, with an eye on the squares that the knight will attack from d5 (at this point, you already know that the knight will come to d5 soon).
Black has an extra pawn on the kingside, a bad bishop (the center pawn is on a dark square, limiting the scope of the bishop) and pawns on both sides of the board. This is a big advantage, but because of the bad bishop this is not a crushing advantage.
Stockfish's line doesn't look like the best defence by White : 32.Nd5 fxe4 33.fxe4 (not 33.Nxe7?? exf3+ intermediary check followed by Kxe7) 34.Kd3 Kd7 35.Kc4 g5 . White activates the King, Black activates the pawn majority ; at this stage an exchange of minor pieces is trivially winning for Black, with the extra pawn on the kingside and enough space to infiltrate the king elsewhere. Black plays Bd8 to neutralize the white knight on d5, then pushes the majority to keep the white king busy and inflitrates with his own king. In rapid chess a clear plan turns a big advantage into a win.
Instead of 32.Nd5, White chooses 32.b5? giving the c5 square to Black's king. Black should run through that door : 32...Kd6 33.Nd5 fxe4 34.fxe4 Bd8 35.Kd3 Kc5 and White's king cannot guard c4 and at the same time oppose the march of Black's pawn majority. Stockfish suggests 33.Kd3 Kc5 34.Ne2 (aiming at Ng3 after exf5), but 34...Bh4 and White has nothing better than 35.Nc3 Kb4 and Black wins another pawn thanks to the threat Be1+.
After 32.b5?, Black plays 32...h6 which misses the opportunity and serves no purpose, but keeps the advantage. White's 33.Nd5 enables 33...fxe4 34.fxe4 Kd6 winning as seen previously, but Black misses that too and plays 33...g5?. This move gives White an opportunity to cement Black's kingside on dark squares. 34.Ne3! f4 35.Nc4 and it's going to be long, painful and risky to win this with Black. Whose pieces is neutralizing the opponent's ones, here ? White's knight on c4 attacks e5 and controls d6, imprisoning Black's king. Black's bishop doesn't attack anything and can't control the breakthough square on the kingside (g4). Stockfish still favors Black's extra pawn, but it's easy to say when you're a 2800+ engine.
White plays 34.Kf2?, a big mistake as after 34...fxe4 it would be all over. After Black's move 34...h5, White could correct his mistake with 35.Ke3, but even then Black's kingside is theatening : 35...Bd8 36.Kd3?! g4 37.fxg4 fxg4. So White's knight must leave d5 : 35...Bd8 36.Nb4! (after g4, White plays exf5+ and equalizes) Be7 37.Nd3 a6 38.bxa6 bxa6. Black has made some progress, pawns are further apart, space has been won on the kingside, but further progress will be difficult. All in all, I feel Stockfish's assessment of 34...h5 a bit optimistic for Black. Not only this move misses the opportunity fxe4, but it leads to a position that is more difficult to win that the one after, say, 32.b5? .
White persists in his mistake with 35.Kg3? (instead of correcting it with 35.Ke3). Either 35...Kd6 immediately (answering 36.Nxe7?? with the intermediate check 36...f4+ before recapturing) or 35...fxe4 36.fxe4 Kd6 infiltrates and wins easily. Actually Black makes his only decisive mistake here with 35...g4 which should make the win impossible. Black loses his extra pawn, White exchanges the minor pieces and the pawn endgame is drawn.
White doesn't exchange on g4 but embarks on in-between moves that are each losing quicker than the alternative... I wonder why he has played Kg3 if the intent was not to guard the g4 square. Then we arrive at the position at the 39th move that has been accurately described by a previous reply.
In endgames, the difficult thing is to find a couple of accurate moves that would make your life easy subsequently. Even GM's miss those opportunities sometimes. I think it's a major stumbling block in chess development.
@A-Cielbleu Thank you!
Basically I should have considered the option of attacking the queenside with my king.
(I think Kg3 was in order to attack on kingside if my king would have let an opening)