Zugzwang is a position where it’s your turn and every legal move worsens your position — you’d love to pass, but you can’t.
In most of chess having the move is an advantage. In zugzwang it’s a liability: you’re forced to act, and any move loosens your grip — stepping away from a key square, giving up a pawn, or letting the enemy king in.
Zugzwang is everywhere in the endgame, where there are few pieces and the obligation to move really bites. King-and-pawn endings are decided by it constantly.
It’s the engine behind the ‘opposition’: putting the kings face to face so that whoever has to move must give ground.
‘TSOOK-tsvang’ — it’s German for ‘compulsion to move’.
The opposition (kings facing off with one square between them) is the most common tool for putting the opponent in zugzwang in king-and-pawn endgames.
BetterChess is a practice tool — we make no guarantee you'll reach 1800 or any rating. Definitions are standard chess terminology; every diagram position is checked legal with the same engine the board runs.