Zugzwang — Chess Puzzles
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Zugzwang is a position where every legal move makes things worse. The player would be perfectly fine if they could simply pass — but chess has no passing, and the obligation to move is what loses the game. The word is German: Zug is a move, Zwang is compulsion. It appears most often in endgames, where few pieces are left and there are no harmless waiting moves to fall back on.
How to spot it
- Few pieces remain, and the side to move has run out of spare pawn moves.
- Every piece is already doing a job — guarding a pawn, holding a square, stopping a passer — so moving any of them gives something up.
- The position would be an easy hold if the side to move could pass.
- The kings stand facing each other with one square between them, and whoever steps aside first lets the other one in.
A worked example
White: king c6, pawn d5. Black: king e5, pawn d6. Endgame books call this shape the trébuchet.
- The pawns are blocked and cannot move at all. Each king defends its own pawn and attacks the enemy one, so neither king can step away.
- White to move has to abandon one of those two jobs. After 1.Kb5 the king no longer guards d5, and 1…Kxd5 takes the pawn — Black promotes and wins.
- Black to move is the mirror image: 1…Ke4 lets go of d6, and 2.Kxd6 leaves White with the extra pawn instead.
The idea Not a single piece changes square between those two cases. Only the turn changes — and it decides the whole game. This is zugzwang at its purest: it works against both sides, which is why endgame books call it a mutual zugzwang.