A Passed Pawn on the Seventh Rank Can Beat a Rook: Alice Lee's Endgame Lesson

Photo: Stefan64 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Let us start with a puzzle from the game. It is Black to move, in the position below. Black has a sacrifice here that turns the game around. Can you find it? The answer is later in this article.

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Black to move. Find the sacrifice that turns the game around.

Analyze this position in the full game

Jennifer Yu 0-1 Alice Lee, 2026 U.S. Women's Championship, Saint Louis, Round 2, 10 October 2026.

The game in one line

The score 0-1 means Black won the game.

Alice Lee was worse for the first half of this game. Then Lee sacrificed the exchange for a passed pawn, pushed the pawn to promotion and won the endgame. The lesson: a passed pawn on the seventh rank can be worth more than a rook when it is supported and the queens are off.

A strong start for Yu

Chess squares have names. Files are the columns, lettered a to h. Ranks are the rows, numbered 1 to 8. So d4 means the d-file, fourth rank.

The game opened 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4, a Queen's Gambit Declined. In this opening White offers the c-pawn. That offer is the gambit. Black holds the center instead of grabbing the pawn.

Yu handled the opening well. After 17.Bxc6, White was a pawn ahead in material, which means the value of White's pieces and pawns added up to one pawn more than Black's. Stockfish is a chess engine, a program that finds the strongest moves. Depth tells you how far ahead it searched. Our Stockfish 17.1 run at depth 20 rated White as much as two pawns better in this part of the game, which in plain language means clearly better. Lee had a fight ahead.

The pawn that would not stop

Then the d-pawn started walking. On move 18, Lee pushed 18...d4. On move 19 came 19...d3. On move 22 came 22...d2. The pawn was now one square from the last rank.

A passed pawn is a pawn with no enemy pawn ahead of it on the same file or on the files next to it. Nothing stands in its way except enemy pieces. When a pawn reaches the last rank, it promotes. Promotion means the pawn becomes a queen, a rook, a bishop or a knight. Players almost always pick a queen. Ranks are counted from each side's back rank, so d2 is Black's seventh rank, one step from promotion.

The sacrifice

Here is the puzzle position again. Black to move.

White's last move, 24.Bb5, was a small slip. Our engine preferred 24.Bd5 and rated White still better after it. After 24.Bb5, Black has one move that keeps the game level, and Lee found it.

Lee played 24...Rxe3. The rook took the bishop on e3. A rook is worth five points and a bishop is worth three points. Giving up a rook for a bishop is called an exchange sacrifice. The exchange is the difference in value between a rook and a minor piece, and a minor piece means a bishop or a knight.

Why give up the exchange? The bishop on e3 was one of the two white pieces attacking the pawn on d2. The other was the rook on c2. Taking the bishop removed an attacker and kept the pawn alive. White's best reply was to take back with the pawn, 25.fxe3. Our engine check at depth 24 shows the other replies lose far more. Then 25...Qxe4 attacked White's queen. White traded queens with 26.Qxe4, and Black took back with 26...Nxe4. With the queens off the board, the passed pawn became even more dangerous.

Lee could not promote the pawn right away. If Black had played 24...d1=Q, White's rook on f1 would have taken the new queen, and after the trades White would come out ahead. Our engine confirms it. The sacrifice came first. The promotion came later.

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After 24...Rxe3. Black gave up the exchange to remove the bishop attacking the passed pawn.

Analyze this position in the full game

The breakthrough

The queens were gone, but the pawn was still on d2. Lee brought the rook and knight around to support it. On move 36, White slipped again with 36.Bg4, and Lee found the engine's top move, 36...Rd3. Black was now clearly better.

Then came the moment the whole game had been building toward. On move 37, Lee played 37...d1=Q. The pawn became a queen. White took it with the bishop, 38.Bxd1, and Black took back with the knight, 38...Nxd1. The trade cost White the bishop that had been holding the pawn back, and the endgame that followed was winning for Black.

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After 37...d1=Q. The pawn becomes a queen. White takes it, Black takes back, and the endgame is winning for Black.

Analyze this position in the full game

Why White resigned

What followed was a long conversion. On move 45 White gave up a rook for a pawn with 45.Rxf7+, and the extra piece left Black in charge. On move 51, White pushed 51.a5, and Black answered 51...Bd4. Yu resigned, which means giving up the game.

The final position explains why. White had a king and two pawns. Black had a king, a bishop and two pawns. White's a-pawn cannot get past the bishop, which covers the a7 square. The pawn can still step to a6, but a7 is guarded, so it cannot reach the last rank. Our engine rates the position as completely winning for Black. There was nothing left to play for.

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After 51...Bd4. The bishop covers a7, so the a-pawn cannot get through. White resigned.

Analyze this position in the full game

What you can steal from this game

First, push your passed pawns. A pawn on the seventh rank can be worth more than a rook. Lee gave up the exchange to keep the pawn alive, and it won the game.

Second, trade queens when your pawn is the star. With the queens off, fewer enemy pieces could stop the pawn. Black started the queen trade with 25...Qxe4 and finished it on move 26, and the pawn promoted eleven moves later.

Third, keep finding good moves when you are worse. Lee was worse for the first half of this game, but kept looking for the best move, and when White slipped on move 24 the sacrifice was there. A worse position is not a lost position.

The rest of the tournament

Lee leads the Women's event on 3.5 points after four rounds. Round 5 is on Wednesday, October 14.

Update: Alice Lee's story, and her Cairns Cup win over Vaishali.