As if loads of free chess videos wouldn't be enough, the guys at chessvideos.tv (formerly chess-videos.com) came up with a new feature: chess endgame simulations. The interactive page lets you practice chess endgames against the Crafty chess engine. So far, only a few basic chess endgames are supported, but I am sure more will be added soon. It is fun to try if your chess endgame knowledge is good enough to force a win from a theoretically won position. However, it clearly shows that you are playing a computer and not a human - the computer chess engine always assumes that you will make the best possible move and, unlike humans, will never try some less-than-optimal move to trick you into a drawn position like human chess players would do. This becomes obvious when moving the king away from the action lets the computer survive in a lost position for a few more moves than by continuing to defend the theoretically lost position, making it much more easy for you to squeeze the win out of the machine. Anyway, give it a try!

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