The Unexpected Advice Given To A Future World Champion

Chess is more popular now than it has ever been. We see articles about chess and chess players in all major media outlets. As a result, chess fans know very well the current chess stars, from established elite players like GM Magnus Carlsen to upcoming prodigies like Faustino Oro.

However, if you ask an average club player about chess titans of the past, you'll get a blank stare in most cases. Case in point is GM Andor Lilienthal. Before World War 2, he was one of the world's best players, but these days, he is mostly remembered for his brilliant win over Capablanca, which we briefly discussed in this old article: 

But Lilienthal wasn't just an outstanding chess player. It is not a well-known fact in his biography that he was GM Tigran Petrosian's coach for about 10 years in the 1950s. Since future world champion Petrosian grew up as an orphan and even had to sweep the streets to earn some money, Lilienthal was a father figure to him. There is a funny story about them that happened in the mid 1950s.

One of Petrosian's games that lasted over five hours was adjourned in a very complicated queen endgame. The game was quite important and was supposed to resume the very next day. Tired, Petrosian asked his coach to analyze the adjourned position and went to bed. In the morning, he found a note under his door.

Here, it is important to mention that even though Lilienthal spent over 50 years in the Soviet Union, where he moved to escape the Nazis, his Russian wasn't perfect—but this imperfection made it quite adorable. So, it is difficult to translate Lilienthal's note, but this is as close as I can. "Dear Little Sonny," the note said, "queen endgames have numerous tricks. My Little Teheran, don't blunder!" 

While the story doesn't say how the game ended, it is difficult to disagree with Lilienthal's advice. Since the queen is the most powerful chess piece, you can expect cunning tricks and unexpected results. A good example is this very recent game:

Yes, it was a blitz game, but even in official tournament games by top grandmasters, unexpected checkmates in queen endgames are not uncommon.

In the following game, Black tried to convert his extra pawn for many moves. Finally, when he was able to push his pawn and the moment of triumph was close, this happened:

Fortunately for GM Vladimir Simagin, he got an identical gift just one year later:

In the following game, we can see an Epaulette Checkmate in an endgame:

In conclusion, try to solve a beautiful study by Czech composer Ladislav Prokes. Despite being down four pawns, White can win!

I hope that now you can appreciate Lilienthal's advice. Whenever you have a queen endgame, be very careful even if you have extra material because these endgames have numerous tricks indeed!