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| Apr-30-10 | | sfm: <chesskidnate: sfm 38 kg4 may have thrown away the win .. once the king abandons the g-pawn Rxg2 h8=Q+ the position is equal materialistically so if the win is apparent in that position it is far from trivial> True. When the g-pawn goes it is hard. Thinking about it, White can't break through a position where Black put his rook on f6/h6 and stays in the corner with his king. So the smart-looking 33.QxQ,RxQ 34.Rf8 was really inferior to 33.Rf8+, which allows White to keep the g-pawn. |
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Apr-30-10
 | | dzechiel: Black to move (38...?). Black is up a rook and two pawns. "Difficult." This one doesn't really qualify as "Difficult", as black has but one path that doesn't lose. It's gotta be: 38...Rc4+
The only other move that stops 39 h8=Q+ is 38...Rg3+, but after 39 Kxg3 black would be no better. 39 Kg5
Or 39 Kg3 or 39 Kh5 or 39 Kh3.
39...Rh4
Stopping the promotion of the pawn.
40 Kxh4 g5+ 41 Kxg5 Kg7 42 Kf4
and now the tricky part. The white king must hustle to the queen side of the board if he has any hope of stopping the a-pawn, eg: 42...a5 43 Ke3 a4 44 Kd2 a3 45 Kc2
but now black starts forward with the d-pawn
45...d4
If the white king tries to capture the a-pawn, the d-pawn will promote, and if he tries to straddle the two pawns with something like: 46 Kb3 d3 47 Kc3 a2
and white finds himself stretched a little too thin.
Time to check and see when this game actually ended.
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Wow. 38 Kg4 is such a lemon. All he had to do was charge the rook on the first and second ranks and he would have gotten his queen. |
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| Apr-30-10 | | abuzic: Backwards, 27...Nxd4 why not 27...Rxg2+ seems to win easy |
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| Apr-30-10 | | Cibator: Seeing it was Lasker playing White, I kept looking for a fancy mate delivered by the remaining WPs just before Black can queen his ... !! Finally realised there was nothing of the sort, and that Manny was on the wrong end for once. |
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| Apr-30-10 | | Leibnoob: Beautiful!! |
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| Apr-30-10 | | TheBish: Loman vs Lasker, 1903 Black to play (38...?) "Difficult"
This isn't as hard as it looks, but at first glance it looks impossible! It seems like the advanced White pawn will queen, and there is no perpetual check with the rook. But there is a trick! 38...Rc4+ 39. Kg5 Rh4!
I knew the only hope would be to check the king with ...g7-g5+ followed by ...Kg7 to catch the h-pawn in time. Tempo is everything! 40. Kxh4 g5+ 41. Kxg5 Kg7 42. Kf4 b4 43. Ke3
White has no time to take the d-pawn, and must rush back to stop the fast marching passers, but it's pointless. With the horde of black pawns, White can now safely resign, as Black will be able to create a queen without assistance from from the king --staying home to defend against White's own passed pawns. 43...b3 44. Kd3 d4!
It's obvious that Black has more pawns that he needs, and the doubled b-pawn is an unneeded bonus. "Miracle" defences like this are one of the many appealing things about chess, what some people would call chess magic! |
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| Apr-30-10 | | tacticalmonster: 1 Rc4+ 2 Kg5 (or Kg3) Rh4! 3 Kxh4 g5+ 4 Kxg5 Kg7 Black won the pawn ending |
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Apr-30-10
 | | An Englishman: Good Evening: A well-known theme nowadays, but this must have been a heartbreaker for unlucky Loman. |
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Apr-30-10
 | | FSR: Of course The Great One won with 38...Rc4+! and 39...Rh4!! It was naive of White to move his king to the fourth rank, thereby allowing this resource. |
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| Apr-30-10 | | Jason Frost: Pretty easy Friday, after realizing that there is no way to trap the soon to be queen, or to attempt to promote yourself. It looks like white blundered away a win by playing 37. Kg3?? Instead moving towards the rook looks crushing 37. Ke3 Rc3+ (37...d4+ 38. Kd3) 38. Kd2 and black is out of resources |
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| Apr-30-10 | | gofer: Well the first 4 moves are obvious as they are the only way to stop Ph7 from promoting. 38 ... Rc4+
39 Kg3/Kg5/Kh3 Rh4!
40 Kxh4 g5+
41 Kxg5 Kg7
Then we get to this position...
click for larger viewAt this point, the black pawns will win the race to promotion. The best one to move first is Pb5. If the king does come across
then next we will move Pa6 3 times to a3 and then after that Pd5 gets to go forward. The king cannot stop Pd5 and Pa3, so its
game over...
Time to check... |
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Apr-30-10
 | | Once: This one made me smile. It reminded my of the old song "dem bones" - the thigh bone's connected to the knee bone, the knee bone's connected to the shin bone, the shin bone's connected to the ankle bone... Black needs to play Kg7 to stop h8=Q. But his own g7 pawn is in the way. So he needs to move his g7 pawn. But he has to be able to do this with check as otherwise white will play h8=Q while black is rearranging the furniture. So he needs to lure the white king onto a square where the g pawn can lunge forward with check. Any of f4, f5, h4 or h5 ought to do the trick. Clearly white won't let himself be forced to one of these squares voluntarily, and black is short on firepower to corral him there. So black has to conjure up a pretty strong threat. And the strongest threat on the board is Rh4, to threaten white's only trump card, the h7 pawn. And the only way to get the rook to h4 is via the move 38...Rc4+. And the rest is history. Now that was fun. Took a lot longer to describe than it did to see. I bet white was kicking himself for allowing it. |
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Apr-30-10
 | | agb2002: Black is a rook and two pawns up.
White threatens 39.h8=Q+.
The only way to stop the white pawn is to move the g-pawn while gaining a tempo, that is to say, with check. Hence, the white king should be on f4 or h4. Black can invite White to play Kh4 with 38... Rc4+ 39.Kg(h)5 Rh4 40.Kxh4 (40.Kg6 Rxh2 - +) and now 40... g5+ 41.Kxg5 Kg7 and Black wins the pawn endgame: 42.Kf5 a5 43.Ke5 a4 44.Kd4 a3 45.Kc3 d4+ 46.Kc2 d3+, etc. |
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| Apr-30-10 | | tratra: Black to play
Loman vs Lasker
38...Rc4+
with the idea of moving the black g pawn with an extra tempo Let me check |
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| Apr-30-10 | | Manic: Hi all,
If you scroll above many people cite sources as indicating Lasker was WHITE, and that Loman was black. Hence it would appear that Lasker was the one making the blunder and Loman the one to find the win. |
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| Apr-30-10 | | butilikefur: lol wait.. after that cute tactic Loman just needed 37. Ke1 and was won? is that right? because that would be real sad.. he played a good game. this must have been one of the pieces of groundbreaking evidence used by committees to prohibit world champions from smoking at the chess board.. especially cigars. |
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| Apr-30-10 | | sneaky pete: <Manic> Lasker was white and Chessgames.com had it right until less than a year ago. Since then some fool changed the colours. Here again is a link to the first publication of Lasker's Rudolf Awakening, from Loman's column in the weekly De Amsterdammer, January 3, 1904. Bottom of the page, at the right. http://zyarchive.groene.nl/Exe/ZyNE... "In the game Lasker vs Loman from the simultaneous exhibition in London the following ending occurred, which struck even Lasker as remarkable, although for him at the moment it was an unpleasant surprise." |
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| Apr-30-10 | | TheSlid: Lol - and I got it straight away, which is a bit of a first for Friday! |
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| Apr-30-10 | | daveinsatiable: I think this is the first time I got a Friday quickly, which means either I'm improving or Fridays are getting earlier.
Cute trick on h4. |
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Apr-30-10
 | | whiteshark: Got it instantly, well I've seen it before.... |
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| Apr-30-10 | | zb2cr: Got this one easily--but I have seen it before. |
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Apr-30-10
 | | Phony Benoni: This study by Moravec is yet another variation on the theme (White to play and win):
click for larger view
<1.Rd8+! Kxd8 2.b7 Rb4! 3.Kxb4 c5+! 4.Kb5! Kc7 5.Ka6 Kb8 6.Kb6 c4 7.a4 c3 8.a5 c2 9.a6 c1Q 10.a7#> |
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| Apr-30-10 | | eblunt: <Once > sums up perfectly. This one isn't really hard at all once you realise the only realistic way that black can stop white's h pawn from queening is to move his g pawn with check. Therefore black needs to sacrifice the rook on h4 or f4. h4 is the one white can't refuse since it threatens to take the pawn directly. Neat play by whichever one of the two it actually was ! |
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Apr-30-10
 | | Eggman: Instantly. A pretty finish. |
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| Apr-30-10 | | randomsac: Great puzzle. I saw that the king couldn't kill the white pawn because of his own pawn, so after looking for ways to check with the pawn, I found the solution. After Rh4, black loses his pawn by the rook or by the pawn checking and letting the black king to g7. |
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sac: 27...Nxd4