The first diagram shows the simplest possible example of zugzwang. Zugzwang most often occurs in the endgame when the number of pieces, and so the number of possible moves, is reduced, and the exact move chosen is often critical. Black is in zugzwang any Black move allows White's king to create a passed pawn and win. Walker wrote of the superior side's decisive move: "throwing the move upon Black, in the initial position, and thereby winning". The British master George Walker analyzed a similar position in the same endgame, giving a maneuver ( triangulation) that resulted in the superior side reaching the initial position, but now with the inferior side on move and in zugzwang. Lasker explicitly cited a mirror image of this position (White: king on f3, queen on h4 Black: king on g1, rook on g2) as an example of zugzwang in Lasker's Manual of Chess. His 18th rule is: "To play well the latter end of a game, you must calculate who has the move, on which the game always depends." įrançois-André Danican Philidor wrote in 1777 of the position illustrated that after White plays 36.Kc3, Black "is obliged to move his rook from his king, which gives you an opportunity of taking his rook by a double check, or making him mate". Joseph Bertin refers to zugzwang in The Noble Game of Chess (1735), wherein he documents 19 rules about chess play. The only legal move is 2.g5, whereupon White promotes a pawn first and then checkmates with 3.hxg5 h4 4.g6 h3 5.g7 h2 6.g8=Q h1=Q 7.Qg7 #. The only way for White to win is 1.Ra1 Kxa1 2.Kc2, placing Black in zugzwang. The concept of zugzwang is also seen in the 1585 endgame study by Giulio Cesare Polerio, published in 1604 by Alessandro Salvio, one of the earliest writers on the game. History Īfter 36.Kc3, Black is in zugzwang, since they must move their rook away from their king. The term did not become common in English-language chess sources until the 1930s, after the publication of the English translation of Nimzowitsch's My System in 1929. The earliest known use of the term zugzwang in English was on page 166 of the February 1905 issue of Lasker's Chess Magazine. When a perceived example of zugzwang occurred in the third game of the 1896–97 world championship match between Steinitz and Lasker, after 34.Rg8, the Deutsche Schachzeitung (December 1896, page 368) reported that "White has died of zugzwang". Friedrich Amelung employed the terms Zugzwang, Tempozwang and Tempozugzwang on pages 257–259 of the September 1896 issue of the same magazine. Pages 353–358 of the September 1858 Deutsche Schachzeitung had an unsigned article "Zugzwang, Zugwahl und Privilegien". Over time, the term became especially associated with chess.Īccording to chess historian Edward Winter, the term had been in use in German chess circles in the 19th century. Games like chess and checkers have "zugzwang" (or "zugpflicht"): a player must always make a move on their turn even if this is to their disadvantage. Originally the term was used interchangeably with the term Zugpflicht 'obligation to make a move' as a general game rule. The word comes from German Zug 'move' + Zwang 'compulsion', so that Zugzwang means 'being forced to make a move'. According to John Nunn, positions of reciprocal zugzwang are surprisingly important in the analysis of endgames. Positions with zugzwang occur fairly often in chess endgames, especially in king and pawn endgames. International chess notation uses the symbol " ⊙" to indicate a zugzwang position. The concept of zugzwang was known to chess players many centuries before the term was coined, appearing in an endgame study published in 1604 by Alessandro Salvio, one of the first writers on the game, and in shatranj studies dating back to the early 9th century, over 1000 years before the first known use of the term. The term zugzwang was used in German chess literature in 1858 or earlier, and the first known use of the term in English was by World Champion Emanuel Lasker in 1905. Putting the opponent in zugzwang is a common way to help the superior side win a game, and in some cases it is necessary in order to make the win possible. Īlthough the term is used less precisely in games such as chess, it is used specifically in combinatorial game theory to denote a move that directly changes the outcome of the game from a win to a loss. Zugzwang (German for "compulsion to move", pronounced ) is a situation found in chess and other turn-based games wherein one player is put at a disadvantage because of their obligation to make a move a player is said to be "in zugzwang" when any legal move will worsen their position. For other uses, see Zugzwang (disambiguation). For the musical work, see Zugzwang (musical work).
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