Common Pawnless Endings (rook and Minor Pieces)
John Nunn lists these types of pawnless endgames as being common: (1) a rook versus a minor piece and (2) a rook and a minor piece versus a rook (Nunn 2007:156–65).
- Rook versus a bishop: this is usually a draw. The main exception is when the defending king is trapped in a corner that is of the same color square as his bishop (Nunn 2002a:31) (see Wrong bishop#Rook versus bishop). If the defending king is trapped in a corner that is the opposite color as his bishop, he draws (see Fortress_(chess)#Fortress in a corner). See the game of Veselin Topalov versus Judit Polgar, where Topalov defended and drew the game to clinch a win of their 2008 Dos Hermanas match.
de La Bourdonnais vs. McDonnell, 1834 match
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Position after 92...Ka5, draw
- Rook versus a knight: this is usually a draw. There are two main exceptions: the knight is separated from the king and may be trapped and won or the king and knight are poorly placed (Nunn 2002a:9).
- Rook and a bishop versus a rook: this is one of the most common pawnless endgames and is usually a theoretical draw. However, the rook and bishop have good winning chances in practice because the defense is difficult. There are some winning positions such as the Philidor position, which occurs relatively often. There are two main defensive methods: the Cochrane Defense and the "second rank defense" (Nunn 2007:161–65). Forced wins require up to 59 moves. As a result, FIDE extended the fifty-move rule to 100 moves and then to 75 moves for this endgame, before returning to fifty moves (Speelman, Tisdall & Wade 1993:382). See rook and bishop versus rook endgame for more information.
- Rook and a knight versus a rook: This is usually a simple draw with few winning positions. The winning positions require the defending king to be badly placed near a corner; this can not be forced in general (Nunn 2007:159–61). The Cochrane Defense can be used.
Topalov vs. J. Polgar, 2008
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White to move, draw
Philidor, 1749
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White to move wins, Black to move draws (Nunn 2002a:178)
Timman vs. Lutz, 1995
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Black to move, drawn 52 moves later (Lutz 1999:129–31)
J. Polgar vs. Kasparov, 1996
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Position before White's 70th move, a draw with correct play. Polgar blundered on move 79 and resigned after move 90.
Alekhine vs. Capablanca, 1927
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White to move, the game was drawn twelve moves later. The white king cannot be driven to the edge.
Karpov vs. Ftáčnik, 1988
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Black to move. This combination is usually a draw but here White wins because the black king and knight are far apart (Müller & Pajeken 2008:237), (Károlyi & Aplin 2007:320–22), (Nunn 2007:158–59)