Lucena position

The Lucena position is one of the most famous and important positions in chess endgame theory, where one side has a rook and a pawn and the defender has a rook. It is fundamental in the rook and pawn versus rook endgame. If the side with the pawn can reach this type of position, he can forcibly win the game. Most rook and pawn versus rook endgames reach either the Lucena position or the Philidor position if played accurately (de la Villa 2008:125). The side with the pawn will try to reach the Lucena position to win; the other side will try to reach the Philidor position to draw.

The position is named after the Spaniard Luis Ramirez de Lucena, although he did not analyze it or publish it (Shenk 2006:79).

The Lucena position is named after the Spaniard Luis Ramírez de Lucena, although it is something of a misnomer, because the position does not in fact appear in his book on chess, Repetición de Amores e Arte de Axedrez (1497). It does appear, however, in Alessandro Salvio's Il Puttino (1634), a romance on the career of the chess player Leonardo da Cutri, and it is in that form that it is given here (Müller & Lamprecht 2001:179). Salvio attributes it to Scipione Genovino (Hooper & Whyld 1992:238). It is likely that the error arose from the sixth edition of the Handbuch des Schachspiels, in which editor Constantin Schwede incorrectly attributed the position to "Lucena 96", possibly as a result of confusion over the references in Antonius van der Linde's 1874 work Das Schachspiel des XVI. Jahrhunderts.

The position is shown above and below (the position can be moved as a whole or mirrored so that the pawn is on any of the files b through g). White's aim is to either promote his pawn or else compel Black to give up his rook for it – either result will leave White with an overwhelming material advantage and a straightforward win. White has managed to advance his pawn to the seventh rank, but it is prevented from queening because his own king is in the way. White would like to move his king and then promote his pawn, but is prevented from moving to the a-file by the black rook, and prevented from moving to the c-file by the black king.

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