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.

Estonian and Soviet Grandmaster. World Championship Candidate. In 1939 Keres was in fine form at the traditional Easter tournament at Margate. He won 1st prize, one point ahead of Capablanca and Flohr. Later that year he played an important match with Euwe, the former Dutch World Champion. Although it was billed as a friendly match, the general opinion was that the winner would have the moral right to challenge Alekhine for the World Championship. Keres won the match by the margin of one point but his chances of a title match disappeared with the outbreak of War. Paul Keres was one of the greatest players in chess history, but sadly he was never destined to play a match for the World Championship.

In 1964, Harry Golombek told a B.B.C. radio audience about an ending he resigned against Paul Keres at Margate, 1938 (sic) just when he had obtained a drawn position. Golombek vs Keres, Margate, 1939 is the ending in question and this was indeed the case as the analysis will show.

The main line is the actual moves played in the game until the fateful move 9...Bb2? Keres thought this move won outright and so did his opponent; Golombek resigned the game. Later Reuben Fine explained in his Basic Chess Endings (McKay, 1941 ) why Golombek had resigned but Hooper & Euwe in their Guide to Chess Endings( 1958) pointed out a flaw in Fine's analysis. This flaw has been carried over to the new algebraic edition of Basic Chess Endings. (Fine, Benko 2003). Hooper & Euwe analysis showed that with best play the ending should have been drawn after 9...Bb2? The main line below follows the winning move 9...Bc3! which seems to have been missed by all the main analysts of this intriguing story.