The Lucena Position
If you’ve been playing chess for a while, there’s a good chance that you’ve encountered The Lucena Position before. It’s a very common and important endgame position which you should know by heart. In this lesson, we’ll be going over how to play The Lucena Position so you can turn this seemingly draw-ish position into a win.
The Lucena Position is an endgame position where one side has a pawn on the 7th rank, a king on the promotion square, and a rook, while the opponent has only a rook and a king. A possible Lucena Position is shown below. (If you would like to just see the moves of the Lucena Position and not
Let’s assume it is black’s turn here. The best move for black is Rf1 which prevents the white king from moving to any squares. But it is likely that your first instinct as black was Rb8+. Though both Rf1 and Rb8+ are losing for black (white wins in this position no matter what, which we will see soon), Rb8+ loses much quicker due to Kf7, Kd7, Rd2+ forcing the black king to vacate the d-file, Kc7, and e8=Q.
So, why is Rf1 the best move for black? White has one goal in this position and that’s to promote his pawn to a queen. But since the king is blocking the pawn, he needs to move the pawn out of the way first. By playing Rf1, the white King has no legal squares to move to, and if the king can’t move, the pawn can’t promote. So does this mean the position is drawn?
No. It is white’s craftiness in this position to allow him to win the game that makes The Lucena Position a must-know endgame for chess players.
So what is the right move in this position? It’s Rc2+.
This forces the black king to vacate the c-file. If black decides to play Kd6, white plays Kd8, and it’s now impossible for black to prevent white from promoting. So what can black play? Black must move to the b-file, and though all variations are still losing, we’ll have black play Kb7.
In this position, though the black king is no longer controlling the d-file and thus Kd8 seems viable, it does not work due to Rd1+ which forces the king to retreat back to e8.
What about Kd7, you may ask. If Kd7, Rd1+, Ke6, Re1+, Kf7, Rf1+. Here, if white plays Ke8, we’re back to square 1, but if white tries to maneuver out to the g file, black will simply play Re1, threatening to take the e7 pawn which will force the white king back to the f-file to protect the pawn. Then, black can again check white with Rf1+, and the position will be a draw.
So what is the right move for white? It’s the magnificent Rc4!
The move looks futile and almost like a waiting move, but it is this Rc4 that allows white to build a “bridge,” which we will see shortly.
Black has no offensive opportunities, so he must glide his rook along the f-file or aimlessly wander with his king. The best move for black is Kb6, so for our position, we’ll have black play that though it is important to understand that all variations are still losing for black.
Now, here, white can play Kd7. So what’s the difference between Kd7 now versus the Kd7 variation we looked at a little while back? The difference is the rook on f4 which will allow us to build a bridge. In response to Kd7, black plays Rd1+. White slides his king over with Ke6, and black checks again with Re1+. Here, white is able to play Kd6. This ensures that the white pawn is still protected, but also, we are getting closer and closer to the white rook. Black cannot allow the pawn to promote, so he will play check again with Rd1+. Here, we can play Ke5, and after Re1+ again, we can play Re4!
Notice that the black rook cannot prevent e8=Q next move. So, white will win the game.
So this is The Lucena Position. With this crafty Rc4, we were able to slowly advance our king until the rook can block the check. Note that Rc3 or Rc2 would not have worked since the white king would no longer be defending the e7 pawn if it travelled that far.
This position is crucial to understand as it occurs quite commonly, and knowing this bridge technique will make the difference between a draw and a win. For instance, in the below game between FM Carlo Barlocco and GM Ventzislav Inkiov in the 1999 Bernate op, FM Carlo Barlocco wins the game by resignation due to his mastery of The Lucena Position.
Author: Saharsh Satheesh
