I have been enjoying these rook and pawn endings, but these are starting to get tedious. Ideas in the position that I notice are:

- Black can play Kc3 or Ke3 which threatens mate. White must respond with a rook check, so he wouldn't have time to take my g-pawn, and I could use the extra tempo to attack the white a-pawn with the black king or protect the g-pawn with the black king.

- Black could simply play 50...Rg2 to keep the g-pawn on the board, but then he has to worry about the running a-pawn.

- The position of the white rook on the 7th rank makes it difficult to hide from its checks. But that may give us an idea.

How about

50...g4!

If white captures the pawn with

51 Rxg4+

we respond with

51...Kc3

This threatens mate starting with 52...Rh1+. If the white king tries to escape with 52 Ke1 then 52...d2+ 53 Kd1 Rh1+ 54 Ke2 d1=Q+ . So, white must play

52 Rg1

just to stay in the game. But after

52...Ra2

the mate threat is back on, plus we are threatening to skewer the king and rook. White has no good move. What does all this mean? It means that white can't play 51 Rxg4+. So what does happen after

50...g4!

If white doesn't do something fast, the g-pawn will continue to trundle on down the board. Anytime the white rook might capture it, black will simply play ...Kc3 and the end is near. So, let's look at the checks.

51 Rd7+

Black must either run up after the rook, or find a place to hide. The only place to hide is in front of the g-pawn or behind the a-pawn. My gut tells me that going after the white rook will only misplace our king on the wrong side of the board, so let's try

51...Kc3

This does have the nice side effect of threatening mate.

52 Rc7+ Kb4

Now if black checks again, we at least get the a-pawn. On

53 Rd7

we advance the g-pawn again.

53...g3 54 Rxd3 g2!

And after

55 Rg3 Rh1+ 56 Ke2 g1=Q 55 Rxg1 Rxg1

and it's all over for white.

And, if white tries 53 Rg7 we play 53...g3 and white still can't take the pawn because after 54 Rxg3 Kc3 is once again winning.

There's probably more, but I'm not looking for it tonight.

I'm will be in San Francisco over the weekend, and will see you folks again on Monday's position.

Does that end in a draw? I've been going over it in my mind, and black's only alternative to perpetual check seems to be moving the king to the a-pawn. Hiding behind the g-pawn looks to result in white's advantage, where the a-pawn's advance could end it. And, an exchange of rooks over the central pawn leads to stalemate.

Chasing the rook...can't see the king getting very far.

So let's try 51. a5. we can't now transpose to the pawn ending earlier, but then with the pawn on a5, because it would promote with check. So here's what I propose: 51. ..Ke3 52. Re7+ Kf2! followed by g3-g2-g1 which is pretty much unstoppable.

if 50...♖a2 51 ♖xg5 d2 52 a5 ♔d3 then 53 ♖g3+ drives back the Black ♔ and now Black's ♖ is stuck defending the d♙. That's the general idea. But if Black first plays 50...♔c3 then if 51 ♖xg5 Black can play 51...♖a2 with the idea of playing d2 and keeping the White ♖ busy defending the a♙.

Still, this looks drawish. So I haven't come up with a definitive solution and it's late. I'm sleepy. I will look now and see what happened.

Be nice. Dzechiel always posts informative analysis. Your analysis, on the other hand, is not only full of holes but indicated you haven't really understood this position and solution.

Thus, after 50...g4! 51 Rd7+ Kc3 52 Rc7+ Kb4 53. Rg7 (as suggested by you), Black doesn't play your 53... Rg2? but instead wins with 53... g3!

50 .. g4 51. a5 Ra2 52. Rd7+ Ke3
53. Re7+ Kf2 54. Re8 g3 55. Rf8+ Kg1 56. Ke1 Re2+ 57. Kd1 Rf2 58. Rg8 g2 59. a6 Ra2 60. Ke1 Rxa6