Welcome to this active site. Each week I am going to present to you an endgame position for you to solve or to workout the best continuation. Computer analysis will also be considered. Some of these positions will come from actual historical games. Others will be composed endgame studies, but all the solutions will be relevant to the practical game. The new position will occur each SUNDAY and I will always be pleased to receive POSITIVE feedback about the positions and the analysis and I will try to acknowledge these where relevant.

 

American Master and Chess Critic. A colourful American player who won the US Open in 1945 and the New York State championship four times. For over thirty years he was a major contributor to the American Chess Bulletin. Besides chess, Santasiere was keen on art and music. He became a recognized author with books about poetry, chess and a children's novel to his credit.

Although Santasiere was attracted to the romantic side of chess and hated the technical aspect, he had a reputation as a tough opponent and could play the final phase to a high standard. In his youth he had drawn games against Lasker, Marshall and Janowski. This ending was played when Reuben Fine was at the height of his career after just completing a very successful European tour.

It is interesting that Reuben Fine used this ending in his great classic Basic Chess Endings (1941, 2003) as one of the examples to illustrate the winning process in the class of ending KBpp v KBp.