Second Rank Skewer common Motif in Rook and Pawn Endings

This 1940 chess composition by Prokes was in Practical Chess Endings by Irving Chernev. This book was emphatically espoused by the late NM Jim Gallagher of San Antonio,TX. Jim believed that far too many class players were deficient in the endgame phase of The Royal Game.

The idea behind the second rank skewer in this position is to advance the g6 pawn to g7 which places it on Black's second rank where the Black monarch also resides at c7. The Black Rook is then forced to attack the pawn from g6 to prevent its promotion to Queen.

White reacts with Ra1 setting up the skewer if the Rook captures the immune g7 pawn. This combined with the threat of Rook to a8 also threatening a Queen promotion is sufficient to force resignation.

Would like to close with a little tribute to the good old days in San Antonio chess when Selby Anderson was editor. Will close by listing some of the Players that I remember from that region: Martin Gordon, JP Hyltin, Eric Dimazana, Mitch Vergara, Mitchell White, Tony Alston, Greg Wren, Larry Moss, Steve Young, Pete Gibson, Enrique Rios, David John, Shawn Noland, Sonny Kamberi, Bill Wheeler, Jesse Matlock, Matt Campbell, Dave Mackey, John Hendricks, Paul Muljadi, Gregg Stanley, Steven Grubbs, Donald Flournoy, Randall Schwarz, ....

A couple of important Rook ending themes

One crucial aspect of chess mastery is knowledge of certain types of endings that are known to be won or drawn. Endgame knowledge saves you time over the board with respect to calculation time. Rook and pawn endings are likely the most common endings so more time should be spent acquiring knowledge and undertanding the intricacies in these type of endings.



In the following 3 minute game played at ICC, RiskyMonster of Iceland has a Rook and three pawns and his opponent has a Rook and two pawns with the a2 black pawn one square from queening. White's King is tactically confined to the the second rank, otherwise a rook check will  allow the a2 pawn to promote to a Queen.

Also White's c2 pawn is immobilized because of a skewer also along the second rank after the black rook moves threatening a queen promotion. Also note that  White's rook is stuck on the A file.

So despite White's extra pawn, Black can easily draw by moving just moving his king around.