Examples of using "Zugzwang" in a sentence and their english translations:
Zugzwang is a situation in which the obligation to make a move in one's turn is a serious, often decisive, disadvantage.
A player is said to be in zugzwang when, if it is his turn to play, any move he makes will inevitably lead to the loss of the game.
Sometimes, one of the players manages to force the opponent to make a move that causes him to lose. It is then said that he put the opponent in zugzwang.
"Zugzwang" is a German word which, with reference to chess, means more or less the following: "obligation to make a move and, consequently, to lose the game".
White: rook on a1, pawn on b6, king on c8. Black: pawns on a7 and b7, king on a8, bishop on b8. White puts the opponent in zugzwang by playing the rook to a6, after which Black has only two options: take the rook on a6 or move his bishop to any other square on the diagonal b8-h2. In the first case, White advances his pawn from b6 to b7 and checkmates. In the second situation, the white rook takes the black pawn on a7, with the same result.