Endgame studies - Making walls

Hey friends,

In this endgame studies I will give algorithms / ideas on how to push the king to the corner or the board by creating walls, not giving him way to pass and thus eventually corner him and checkmate. We will discuss the ideas of mating with rook+king and bishop pair+king today.

Rook + King Checkmate

Position in which the wall is built.

OR

Pushing the King towards the back ranks, edge of the board. Once the black king is pushed then, we improve our king's position too elevating it's rank.

With black to play here, 

If black goes to 7th Rank i.e Kc7, Kb7 or Ka7 then push our rook down to 6th rank closing in the box.

If black stays on same rank, i.e Ka6 then play Kb6 and next move our rook goes down to push the king further back

With White to play here,

White can simply play a waiting move with the rook, Re5/ Rf5/ Rg5, which reduces the scope of black king to move. And the position reduces to the the earlier option, with black to play.

The final checkmate will take place when black king is on the final rank/last file on the edge of the board.

Also view a similar post on endgames for beginners here

Bishop pair + King Checkmate

The wall position with the bishop pair

The red arrows indicate the wall made by the bishops only. And the green squares show the valid squares for the king to move to.

With white to play here

Can go 1. Bd4 Reducing scope of king's flight squares

1. Bd4 Kd5 2. Ke3 Ke6 3. Be4 Strengthening the wall reducing squares for the king to run away

Final Mating position

For more such posts follow my blog The Isolated Queen pawn's blog..

Continue playing enjoy learning!!