Inside Story: Emperor of the Endgame

Editor's note: this story first appeared in the February 2026 issue of Chess Life magazine. A reduced size pdf of the magazine article is available to accompany this online version.

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Ask a chessplayer to pick today’s important endgame theorist, and chances are they’ll say Mark Dvoretsky, whose eponymous Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual has become one of the most recommended (if less often fully read) books among today’s elite.

Some will prefer Karsten Müller, with Fundamental Chess Endings (co-written with Frank Lamprecht) and How to Play Chess Endgames (with Wolfgang Pajeken) often recommended to serious students. Müller is also one of the current team behind the latest Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual, now in a heavily updated sixth edition.

Old heads will argue that Averbakh’s five-volume Comprehensive Chess Endings is still the best teaching series. Rook ending aficionados might reach for Smyslov and Levenfish’s Rook Endings, but only the descriptive version — the algebraic one is full of typos. And you’ll still find those who recall Reuben Fine’s Basic Chess Endings with more than a bit of nostalgia.

But endgame theory does not stop moving, and with today’s technology corrections are made and discoveries found all the time. The most interesting work in endgame theory today might be coming from an untitled Armenian who spends his free time posting to message boards and whom both Dvoretsky and Müller have regularly cited.

I first encountered Vardan Poghosyan in the Chesspub.com endgame forums almost 15 years ago, where he, along with a handful of others, has been publishing scrupulously detailed analyses. His discoveries in a number of key positions have rewritten chunks of rook endgame theory, and in recent months he has turned his attention to correcting analyses by Gelfand and Shereshevsky.

I asked Poghosyan to tell us a little about himself and his chess origin story. He also takes us inside his chess laboratory to look at two of his key discoveries as well as a recent endgame composition based on his studies.

JH: Could you tell Chess Life readers a bit about yourself?

VP: I was born in 1965 in the village of Verin Artashat, about 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) from Yerevan. I learned chess at age 9 from my father, who at 94 still enjoys the game. Chess literature was hard to obtain in Soviet Armenia, so my first real source of instruction was Chess Armenia magazine. In 1976 I earned the fourth category norm through its solving competition, and a year later the third category norm through a correspondence school run by Viktor Henkin in Komsomolskaya Pravda. After joining the Yerevan Chess School, I achieved the first category norm in 1980.

Chess fascinated me, but I was equally drawn to history and international politics. In the ninth grade I decided to focus on preparing for the elite Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). After considerable effort I was admitted and graduated with distinction in 1991, though I chose not to become a diplomat.

Vardan Poghosyan. (Courtesy of the subject)

Following the Soviet Union’s collapse, I pursued a second degree at the University of Bonn, studying political science and public law. I returned to Armenia in 1999 and worked for 20 years as team leader of the GIZ Legal Program, contributing to numerous legislative projects. I was also one of the principal authors of Armenia’s fully revised 2015 Constitution.

JH: How did you become interested in endgame theory?

VP: My renewed interest began when my three sons started playing chess and attending the Yerevan Chess School. Unlike in my childhood, chess literature had become widely available, and I gradually built a large library. It was Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual, however, that truly reignited my fascination with rook endings. Later, watching the 2010 Sasikiran – Aronian game online had a profound impact: A theoretically simple draw turned into a painful loss for my friend Levon. This encounter pushed me to examine rook endings much more deeply.

JH: How do you do your analysis?

VP: While working through Dvoretsky’s manual, I analyzed the Capablanca – Yates ending over the board and found the move 6. e6, which engines confirmed was winning. This contradicted decades of accepted theory and encouraged me to re-examine much of the literature with a critical eye.

VP: One of my most important findings was in the Kantorovich position.

VP: From the start I doubted the traditional capture on f2 and believed Black should seek immediate counterplay. Modern engines and 7-piece tablebases now make it possible to analyze theoretical endings with remarkable precision. This accuracy finally allows us to establish reliable principles and generalizations that can be taught systematically — something I see as central to my work.

I am also interested in the historical development of rook endgame theory. The American mathematician Orrin Frink, for example, made contributions that deserve far wider recognition, and I am preparing an article on his work.

JH: Why should practical players study endgame theory?

VP: For anyone who plays competitively, endgame knowledge is essential. Even elite players commit serious mistakes under time pressure in positions they could handle with better theoretical grounding.

The Sasikiran – Aronian game is a perfect example: Levon lost because he was unfamiliar with a principle known since Chéron — that in certain rook and pawn versus rook endings, the defending king must advance toward the fifth or sixth rank, not retreat.

I believe that adjournments slowed theoretical progress in years gone by; players assumed they could analyze endings at home. With today’s rapid and accelerated time controls, such luxury no longer exists. Deep endgame knowledge wins games.

JH: What are your favorite chess books? Do you plan to publish your own?

VP: It’s difficult to single out one favorite. Among theoretical works on rook endings, I especially value the first edition of Averbakh’s volume, written by the superb analyst Nikolay Kopaev. Although never translated into English, a German edition exists. I also appreciate Averbakh’s two-volume German-language endgame textbook, which presents 263 rook endings in a very clear and methodical way.

At a more introductory level, I recommend de la Villa, Silman, and Averbakh’s Essential Knowledge. And of course, the work closest to my heart is Dvoretsky’s manual, continually refined by Karsten Müller and GM Alex Fishbein.

Between 2011 and 2012 I exchanged extensive correspondence with Mark Dvoretsky. I sent him analyses; he sent revised drafts of his manual, and I commented on them. After our work on specific positions, I submitted methodological observations on his rook endgame chapter. I also shared a long study on cutting off the king along files, proposing revised formulations of rules introduced by Chéron and later modified by Kopaev. Dvoretsky wrote that the study was “too large for a journal or website” and suggested preparing a full book that integrated my findings. He believed such a book “would certainly be noticed and influence future publications.”

At the time my professional workload made this impossible, especially once I joined the Constitutional Commission in 2013. Today, however, the idea feels more realistic. My analyses continue to grow rapidly — though I am still deciding whether to publish a single comprehensive volume or release material in stages.

By way of conclusion, and as an example of how practical play can influence art and theory, I can offer a study I composed after analyzing Potapov – Shubin (Russian Rapid Ch, 2019). In the game, Black chose the natural-looking 44. ... Rb8? and lost, whereas the precise 44. ... Rd8! would have saved the day in true study-like fashion.

Who was Orrin Frink?

Orrin Frink Jr. (1901-1988) was an important 20th-century mathematician who introduced the concept of the Frink ideal. He taught at Penn State for more than 40 years after earning his doctorate in mathematics from Columbia in 1926 or 1927.

But mathematics was not Frink’s only interest. He was a regular in the New York chess scene in the 1920s and likely (based on results and historical reconstruction) at least a master-strength player. Perhaps his best result was at the 1924 Manhattan Chess Club Championship, where he shared third place with an aged David Janowsky. Here’s his game from that event with another star in Caïssa’s pantheon, Carlos Torre Repetto.

This fine save is emblematic of Frink’s broader interest in the endgame. He regularly published problems, studies, and endgame analyses from 1919 through 1928, mostly in The Chess Amateur, including a study that anticipated a famous Vancura position attributed to Romanovsky in 1950.

But that’s not to say that Frink couldn’t play attacking chess. Check out this fine miniature published in the February 1920 issue of American Chess Bulletin.

Editor’s note: As an online exclusive, readers may be interested to peruse 14 additional largely unknown games of Frink originally published in The Chess Amateur. All games are in the study for this article, beginning at this chapter. Of them, the following French dismantlement was particularly impressive, so I added some annotations.