|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 3 OF 4 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
| Dec-04-06 | | McCool: There are only two other games in this database that King and two pawns versus king result in draws. J Kraai vs Seirawan, 2002 Dreev vs R Wessman, 1990 |
 |
Dec-04-06
 | | YouRang: Interesting change-of-pace for a <chessgames.com> Monday puzzle. Here we have a basic, but instructive puzzle. Anyone familiar with K+P endings knows that you play for the opposition: In this case, move to Kf1 so that after ...Ke3 you have ...Ke1 (opposition). The only wrinkle is that there are two pawns instead of one. Usually, this would be decisive, for instance if the pawn were back one square (diagram:white to move):
click for larger view
Here, Black wins no matter what white does, because the extra tempo available to Black with 'free' pawn move, ...f5-f4, can be used to force White to surrender the opposition. But in the game, the 'free' pawn move, ...f4-f3 delivers stalemate! |
|
Dec-04-06
 | | Peligroso Patzer: <zb2cr: In this position, with White on the move, the doubled Pawn doesn't matter. That's because it's blocked, so no tempo-move with it.> Actually, it is not the fact that the trailing Black f-pawn is blocked that matters (because once the front f-pawn moves forward, the trailing pawn will have a tempo move), but rather that it has already reached Black's fifth rank. This means that a tempo move by the f4-pawn will be to Black's sixth rank, controlling squares on the seventh rank and thus bringing about stalemate scenarios. If the entire position were moved back one rank towards Black's side of the board, Black would be winning. In the position with Kings on f3 and e5 and with Black pawns on f4 and f5, the main winning line (with White to move) goes: 1.Kf2 Ke4 2.Ke2 f3+ 3.Kf2 Kf4 4.Kf1 Ke3 5.Ke1 f2+ 6.Kf1 f4 7.Kg2 Ke2 8.Kh2 Kf3 [NOT 8...f1=Q?? stalemate] 9.Kh3 f1Q+ 10.Kh4 Qb5 11.Kh3 Qh5# |
|
| Dec-04-06 | | DanRoss53: What happened around move 33 of the scoresheet? It looks like one of my old scores in which I forget to record a move and then have to mentally traverse the game backwards to the point of the error. |
|
Dec-04-06
 | | kevin86: An unusual Monday puzzle. The lesson is that in a pawn vs king ending-the weaker side should move his king straight back,so that he can gain the opposition when his opponent approaches. In this game,black's second pawn is unluckily too far advanced-with the double pawn,the ideal situation is to use to pawn as a tempo move at the crucial time-here,however,it is stalemate. Today with the puzzle and the gotd-we have stalemates-I wonder if this is a trend this week. |
|
| Dec-04-06 | | kkkkimura: Help! Why doesn't 67...f2 work instead of Ke3? Don't you have a single pawn ending after that? Hope I didn't completely miss something which I probably did. Thanks. |
|
Dec-04-06
| | YouRang: <kkkkimura: Help! Why doesn't 67...f2 work instead of Ke3?> 68. Kxf2, and yes, it's a single pawn ending, but Black can't force promotion. It might go: 68...f3 69. Kf1 Ke3 70. Ke1 f2+ 71. Kf1 Kf3 stalemate (any other move surrenders the pawn). |
|
| Dec-04-06 | | zb2cr: <Peligroso Patzer>, Thanks for the elaboration. I already understood what you had said, for example that if the position were moved back 1 square toward Black's side of the board Black would win. My understanding was on a more intuitive (or instinctual) level, though, as opposed to your very finely presented logical construct. |
|
Dec-04-06
 | | cu8sfan: <I was under the impression that Algebraic notation was a relatively recent arrival. Yet, this scoresheet, from 1939, seems to suggest otherwise. It could be that I, living in the US, was getting a biased perspective regarding this. Was the US slow to adopt an Algebraic notation that the rest of the world had already embraced, just like it is slow to adopt the metric system?> Yes, the US (or the anglo-saxon-world?) was very slowly adopting algebraic notation. I have German chess books from the 1930s and they're all in algebraic. I don't think I've ever seen a German chess book in descriptive. |
|
Dec-04-06
 | | WannaBe: According to wiki, earliest recorded usage of Algebraic Notation is 1173! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeli... |
|
| Dec-04-06 | | vibes43: <kevin86: Today with the puzzle and the gotd-we have stalemates-I wonder if this is a trend this week.> I hope chessgames throws a few more of these in for the future easy days. Something a little less obvious as to whether or not to settle for stalemate but not having to analyze ten lines ten moves ahead. I have never been able to force a stalemate line when I should have. I think they are more difficult to visualize than a winning or losing position. |
|
| Dec-04-06 | | percyblakeney: Concerning stalemates, here's a nice one missed by both players, it's just to look at the final position and suggest what black should have done instead of resigning...: M Klinova vs D Spence, 2006 |
|
Dec-04-06
| | Peligroso Patzer: My favorite endgame position with advanced doubled pawns is a Rook endgame study by Oldrich Duras . It is a Lucena position with an extra pawn on the b-file. In this case, the extra pawn causes huge differences from what would be correct play with a single b-pawn. For anyone who may be interested, this study is the subject of comments on the page accessible through the above link posted by Gypsy and dated October 18 and 19, 2005. |
|
Dec-04-06
| | Peligroso Patzer: One final post for today, resorting to somewhat attenuated connections to post a link to one of my favorite games:
Eliskases vs Gruenfeld, 1933
It concludes with a beautiful endgame by Eliskases against Gruenfeld, the victim of draw-by-stalemate in today's GOTD |
|
| Dec-04-06 | | JustAFish: Thanks, Cu8sfan and WannaBe. I suspected as much. I was a family friend's dinner party the other evening and spotted an original editorial cartoon in a frame on the wall. It was of Uncle Sam in an old style bathing suit cautiously dipping his toe in a sea labelled "The Metric System". Floating on its "back" in the water already was a Globe labelled "Practically, the Rest of the World". The globe was shouting "Come on in, the Water's fine!" The date on the on the editorial? 1972. |
|
| Dec-04-06 | | RonB52734: <Keano: were comments deleted from this thread?> Funny, I had the same feeling, that someone had suggested a move for black that forced a win. It's not here anymore. He or she probably realized that it wasn't a forced win after all and deleted it. |
|
Dec-04-06
 | | al wazir: Yes, comments were deleted when <CG> fixed the moves. As originally posted the score read 65. Kg1 instead of Kf1. Black would have had an easy win with 65...Kg3. An outcry rose up and numerous posts pointed out the win. But Bogo would never have missed an obvious move like that. |
|
| Dec-04-06 | | Jackz: Great example of the importance of opposition, I got this one instantly. |
|
| Dec-04-06 | | unferth: I think the most interesting part is that two masters of this strength didn't shake hands five moves earlier. it's clearly drawn after 54 Kf2--why play on? |
|
Dec-04-06
 | | chessgames.com: We were able to correct the score from our copy of the original score sheet. (We also have the second page, not shown above.) Move 61 was also corrected (Kf1 instead of Ke1). |
|
Dec-04-06
 | | flintrock: <Peligroso Patzer> Thank you. A good thing for a lesser patzer than you are to know over the board. I knew about opposition. Thanks to your comment, I now know when an extra doubled pawn on an inside file should win and when it shouldn't. |
|
Dec-05-06
 | | Richard Taylor: <Marco65> I have redone the "analysis" ... <I could see this was a draw - but as <Sneaky> says it is not easy as one has to be careful - if: The variation should have been -
67 Ke1? Ke3 68 Kf1 f2 69 Kg2 Ke2 70 Kh2!! f2-f1=Q?? is stalemate! But Black wins of course by either 70. ..f3 or 71.... f2-f1 = N+!!> I was pointing out how Black would lose if he didnt go for the opposition - BU there are still traps for Black to watch out for - of course the best move is 67 Kf1 as played which gets a draw. 67 Ke1 loses as I said. |
|
| Dec-02-07 | | Chess Addict: What motivates 21. Qf3? |
|
| Dec-03-08 | | WhiteRook48: Hey I have 2 pawns oops they're both f pawns |
|
| Mar-23-09 | | WhiteRook48: the pawn on f4 stopped everything. If it wasn't advanced so far, black would have won |
|
|
|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 3 OF 4 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
