Zugzwang

Home * Chess * Tactics * Zugzwang

Zugzwang is a position in which it is disadvantageous to move, as every move leads to a worse, and often lost position. Most of the time it happens in late endgames, specially pawn endings, the most obvious example being a KPK endgame, where opposition can be regarded as a special case of zugzwang.

=Zugzwang and Null Move= Zugzwang positions are known cause the Null Move Pruning go wrong. For that reason most programs do not use null move in the late endings. As far as middlegame positions are concerned, programmers either assume that they happen too rarely to bother with them, or use some sort of verification pruning. =Mutual Zugzwang= Mutual or reciprocal zugzwang is a rare position such that who ever is to move is in zugzwang, which may occur in late endings.

=Trébuchet= A Trébuchet is an extreme winning/losing type of reciprocal zugzwang in pawn endgames, also broached in Noam Elkies publication On numbers and endgames. .

=See Also=
 * Alpha Zero's "Immortal Zugzwang Game"
 * Chess Problems, Compositions and Studies
 * Corresponding Squares
 * Null Move Observation
 * Null Move Pruning
 * Null Move Reductions
 * Null Move Test-Positions, where Null Move may fail due to Zugzwang
 * Fail-High Reductions
 * Triangulation
 * Zugzwang (Program)

=Publications=
 * John Roycroft (1990). Identifying Three Types of Zugzwang. ICCA Journal, Vol. 13, No. 4
 * Lars Rasmussen (1991 - 2000). Mutual Zugzwang Results. (various) EG
 * Ingo Althöfer, Bernhard Walter (1994). Weak Zugzwang: Statistics on some Chess Endgames. ICCA Journal, Vol. 17, No. 2
 * Stefan Plenkner (1995). A Null-Move Technique Impervious to Zugzwang. ICCA Journal, Vol. 18, No. 2
 * Noam D. Elkies (1999). On numbers and endgames: Combinatorial game theory in chess endgames. pdf, differs only in trivial stylistic details from the (1996) version published in Games of No Chance edited by Richard J. Nowakowski
 * Guy Haworth, Peter Karrer, John Tamplin, Christoph Wirth (2001). 3-5-man chess: Maximals and mzugs. ICGA Journal, Vol. 24, No. 4
 * Zvi Retchkiman Königsberg (2007). A Combinatorial Game Mathematical Strategy Planning Procedure for a Class of Chess Endgames. International Mathematical Forum, Vol. 2, No. 68
 * Eiko Bleicher, Guy Haworth (2010). 6-Man Chess and Zugzwangs. Advances in Computer Games 12
 * Guy Haworth, Harold van der Heijden, Eiko Bleicher (2011). Zugzwangs in Chess Studies. ICGA Journal, Vol. 34, No. 2

=Forum Posts=

2000 ...

 * Looking for "Zugzwang" positions by Alexander Kure, CCC, February 09, 2002
 * Zugzwang by Mihaly Szalai, CCC, September 10, 2004
 * New Zugzwang Testsuite by Robert Allgeuer, CCC, October 14, 2004
 * Zugzwang Test Suite ZPTS - updated version and results of Fruit by Robert Allgeuer, CCC, October 19, 2004
 * A zugzwang position by Guy Haworth, CCC, December 21, 2005
 * Null-moves and zugzwang by Luca Hemmerich, CCC, September 25, 2009

2010 ...

 * Re: Mate in 17 revisited by Robert Houdart, CCC, July 16, 2010
 * Zugzwang Collection by kingliveson, OpenChess Forum, February 14, 2012 » Engine Testing
 * test position: Rookie-Arasan by Jon Dart, CCC, January 27, 2014 » Arasan, Rookie
 * Zugzwang Test Suite ZPTS by Robert Allgeuer by Paul Henri, CCC, February 12, 2014
 * static mate/stalemate detection? by Alexandru Mosoi, CCC, November 21, 2015 » Null Move Test-Positions, Stalemate
 * 4 old zugzwangs where modern engines still have troubles by Vincent Lejeune, CCC, July 12, 2016

=External Links=

Zugzwang

 * Zugzwang from Wikipedia
 * Talk:Zugzwang from Wikipedia
 * Zugzwang - Wiktionary
 * Immortal Zugzwang Game from Wikipedia
 * Zugzwang by Edward Winter
 * Earliest Occurrences of Chess Terms by Edward Winter

Misc

 * Crime Always Pays: The Chess Bit: In Which A Dominant Queen Bashes The Bishop
 * Zugzwang in Kristiansund, ChessBase News, September 30, 2010
 * Zugzwang - Forced Movement by Rudolf Herz, an artistic thesis on Modern Art, Duchamp and Hitler, various Exhibitions inter alia at Kunstverein Ruhr, Essen 1995, The Jewish Museum, New York City 2002, panel discussion at Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG), May 12, 2015
 * Zugzwang (musical work) from Wikipedia
 * Matt Elliott - Zugzwang, Live à Fip (2016), YouTube Video

=References=

Up one Level