Importance of Rook activity in the endgame
There was reader’s request to post more about endings. As a warm-up, let’s take a look at the old game Tarasch-Rubinstein, San Sebastian 1911.
This example should serve as reminder on how important is Rook activity in the endgame. Very often, one of the players is willing to sacrifice a pawn or two just to improve Rook’s position and gain on activity. Rook endings are fantastic model for transformations material-to-tempo and vice versa.
In the starting position Black is a pawn down and another one (b6) is attacked. Let’s see what happens in case of the natural move for most of chess players. If Black goes with 1…Rd6 to protect the pawn, White will answer with 2. Ke2! first, to cover entry squares on the d-rank, and then proceed with a4-a5, which exploits the pin on the 6th rank. Black is losing another pawn with no compensation whatsoever.
