00:00I weakened his defense on his last rank, and forced him to lose the
00:11material and to resign. Simple, but it's a very important thing to learn.
00:18Exchanging pieces doesn't always mean that position will remain equal, because
00:24you can always get an advantage or to be at a disadvantaged position if you are
00:29not aware about dangers that could be caused by the exchange suggested by your opponent.
00:44And now we can look at a few studies, just to show how it works in the endgame,
00:51when exchanging pieces could lead to
00:53a decisive advantage for one side, or to be a defensive mechanism to save the game that looks
01:03otherwise desperate. Here we have a first study, and it's an endgame. White has an extra piece,
01:11but our pawn is under attack and our knight is under attack.
01:17In the middle game, or in the opening, you definitely have to pay attention to this threat,
01:24because knight is more valuable than a pawn. But we're in the endgame. So protecting the knight
01:31doesn't do us any good. If we protect the knight, and black takes the pawn, that's a theoretically
01:35drawn position. Rook and knight cannot win against a lone rook. So, but how can we benefit from keeping
01:44this pawn alive? Because it's not simply a pawn's endgame, where pawn is rushing. Black has a rook,
01:50and this rook can just go around and stop our pawn. The trick is that we play a quiet move, a3.
