Monday’s position came from a simul game between Emanuel Lasker and Benjamin Leussen, played in The Hague on 9 May 1908. Thanks to my virtual friend Neil Blackburn (simaginfan): I took this from his article here.

Black, to move, is better is this ending because of his further advanced king and White’s isolated queenside pawns. The game, as you’ll see below, fluctuated between a win and a draw.

This position is winning, but Black has only one move to score the point: 27… f6!, preventing e5, which, as Neil points out, is effectively zugzwang. You’d probably need intuition rather than calculation to find this over the board, especially if you’re playing blitz or on increment.

In today’s chess, with faster time limits, better opening preparation and greater tactical skills, more and more games are reaching endings. If you want to maximise your potential you need to excel at this aspect of the game.

One way to do this is to search databases for interesting pawn endings such as this one and play them out against your training partner, your chess teacher or your computer. Write down your moves and then switch on an engine and see how you got on.

Here’s the complete game, with Neil’s excellent annotations.