10 Exercise Questions – Scotch Endgame

The following 10 opening/early middlegame/middlegame positions are taken from my book on Rook vs. Two Minor Pieces, the section on the Scotch Endgame. Enjoy!

I made the opening questions to show how Carsten Hansen and I approach the study of the opening into the early middlegame and even middlegame in our training program 12 Weeks to Better Chess. However, these exact 10 questions are not part of the curriculum.

Try to answer the questions to the exercises, solutions can be found below. All 3 levels in our training program are covered in the exercises.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.e5 Qe7 7.Qe2 Nd5 8.c4 Ba6 9.b3 g6 10.g3 Bg7 11.Bb2 0-0 12.Bg2

The Scotch Endgame arises after Black moves one of the rooks to the e-file and takes the e5-pawn. Black would like to play 12…Rfe8 here (to keep the rook on a8 later), but tactics dictate that 12…Rae8 should be preferred. The main line then goes: 13.0-0 Bxe5 14.Bxe5 Qxe5 15.Qxe5 Rxe5 16.cxd5 Bxf1 17.Kxf1 cxd5

This is the starting position for the first 2 questions.

10 Exercise Questions

Click here to see the solutions to the exercises!

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