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Sep-13-09
 | | al wazir: Wouldn't 58. Kg6 have been a surer and faster (much faster) way to win? If 58...Qc2+, then 59. f5 Qc7 (forced) 60. Qe6+ Kh8 (60...Kf8 61. f6 Qc2+ 62. Qf5) 61. f6 Qh7+ 62. Kg5 wins. |
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| Sep-13-09 | | chillowack: <walker: I don't get it. MIT is the Turkish Inteligence Service - Milli Istihbarat Teskilati, which means National Organization of Intelligence.> So what's so hard to understand about that? Turkey is entitled to an intelligence service too, after all. |
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Sep-13-09
 | | Phony Benoni: <walker> No, no, no, you've got it all wrong. This was from an American intercollegtiate tournament. White was a member of the team from Midcentral Chess University, who normally refer to themselves as "Masters In Training." Black was from a college named after a village in Wales. Its official name is College of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysil-
iogogogoch Technical, but they are generally known as ColTech for short. The "CalTech" is a typo. The qualifications for entering either of these elite centers of higher learning is the ability to keep a correct score for 110 moves. |
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| Sep-13-09 | | kevinatcausa: According to the description at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2003/... , each player had 60 minutes with no increments for this game, and it ended up as somewhat of a time scramble by the end. The article also notes that Caltech beat MIT 5-3 in the chess match in question. |
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| Sep-13-09 | | Kasparkov: White is having a hard time putting this game into win. |
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| Sep-13-09 | | lostgalaxy: One of the cases where the kingside pawn majority proves superior! |
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Sep-13-09
 | | An Englishman: Good Evening: Nice one, <Phony Benoni>! In reality, even us chaps on the other side of the pond know about these two excellent tech schools, California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After checking Wikipedia, it becomes clear that CIT is lucky to have a strong chess team; their men's basketball team hasn't done so well. To put it very mildly. |
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| Sep-13-09 | | ChessYouGood: black should have resigned MUCH EARLIER - English guy's comments would be more interesting if not based solely on wikipedia |
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| Sep-13-09 | | JohnBoy: <ChessYouGood> - black should NOT have resigned earlier. White was having a hard time finishing the job, and black appropriately demanded a proper finish. |
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| Sep-13-09 | | furrer: I agree wotj John Boy, and dont we all remember an endgame very much the same as this one? Topalov vs Anand, 2005 |
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| Sep-13-09 | | sfm: <al wazir: Wouldn't 58. Kg6 have been a surer and faster (much faster) way to win? If 58...Qc2+, then 59. f5 Qc7 (forced) 60. Qe6+ Kh8>... <61. f6> You like it fast? Then there's a real fast alternative to 61.f6 :-)
<(60...Kf8 61. f6)>
Aw! Black has 61.-,Qh7+ 62.Kg5,Qh6+ 63.Kf5,Qf4! Dammit! - - -
But can it really be true that this endgame should take that long time? |
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| Sep-13-09 | | SomeoneElse: Congratulations to the Caltech team on the match win. As a Caltech alumnus and former member of the basketball team I can confirm that we often struggled on the court. However, we played with the tenacity that Hummel shows in this game and our victories, while rare, were still sweet. While white's position after 47...Qxh6 is winning and a twenty-something move forced mate can be found in a tablebase, why not make white prove it over the board? According to Shredder's online tablebase (http://www.shredderchess.com/online...) white twice entered lines that would have allowed black the draw:
68. Kf6? Qc6+ 69. Qe6 Qc7! 70. g6 Qc3+ 71. Qe5 Qc6+
and
93. Kf6? Qd8+ 94. Ke6 Qe7+ 95. Kd5 Qb7+ 96. Kd4 Kg7!
The drawing lines are long and were certainly not obvious to me. I doubt I would find them OTB in time pressure, but like Hummel (and the basketball team) I would keep playing. Go (Caltech) Beavers! |
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| Sep-13-09 | | sfm: 64.Kg5?? was a mistake. Instead, Kg6 wins instantly, the black king being at f8 makes all the difference. White must have overlooked that -,Qc6+ 65.Qf6+ is no longer an option. Also, black can't put his Queen on 7th or 8th row, as White's Qh8+ will win. So, no more attacks on the White king from the side, and the back is covered by pawns. And Black can't put his Queen on the diagonal a2-g8 because of White's Qf6+ and Qe6+ In addition, White can kick the Black king out at will. It's really over: 64.Kg6,Qb1+
(It doesn't matter much what Black plays, White put pawns on f5 and g5 in any case) 65.f5,Qd3 (nothing to do, really)
66.g5,Qc2
67.Qg7+,Ke8
68.Qf7+,Ke8
69.Kg7
click for larger view
There's not a shadow of a defense here, the white pawns march on. |
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Sep-13-09
 | | Peligroso Patzer: <ChessYouGood: black should have resigned MUCH EARLIER *** > <JohnBoy: <ChessYouGood> - black should NOT have resigned earlier. White was having a hard time finishing the job, and black appropriately demanded a proper finish.> <furrer: I agree [with] John Boy, and don’t we all remember an endgame very much the same as this one?Topalov vs Anand, 2005 > <JohnBoy> is absolutely right. Queen endgames are very, very tricky and almost always worth playing out. In the game cited by <furrer>, which ultimately was drawn in 97 moves, both of the elite players involved went astray. Specifically, the position after 73. … Qxg5+: 
click for larger view is theoretically drawn, but Anand soon went wrong with 76. … Qg5+?. (The only drawing move here was 76. … Qh3+.) The position at this point became a theoretical win and remained so until Topalov erred with 90. h7? (when either 90. Qh5+ or 90. Qg4 were the only theoretically winning moves). From that point to the end, the game was a theoretical draw. Thus, in the game cited by <furrer>, which was played at a regular time control in the 2005 World Championship tournament, the two players currently [i.e., as of September 2009] rated #1 and #2 in the world each committed a half-point blunder in the ending; and, just to illustrate how tricky these endings can be, although such a blunder from any elite player would be extremely unlikely, at either move 94 or 96, if Toplaov had tried to avoid a repetition by playing 94. Kh6?? [or 96. Kh6??], Anand would have won on-the-spot by checking on the 6th rank. BTW, here is another Queen ending in which the current [September 2009] #1 rated player gave away half a point: Morozevich vs Topalov, 2007. (See comments in the thread on the linked page.) |
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Sep-13-09
 | | maxi: Absolutely. One should NOT resign this type of ending. As a matter of fact there are many games on record where the weak side draws... and sometimes wins! They are tricky and dangerous, and accident prone. Either side can easily get mated at any moment. They are also very tiring which makes them even more dangerous. |
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Sep-13-09
| | Peligroso Patzer: With regard to how difficult Queen endings can be, there is an interesting discussion of Q + 2p vs. Q endings in “Secrets of Practical Chess (New Enlarged Edition)”, by John Nunn, Gambit Publications ©2007 at pages 247-249. This discussion occurs in the context of a review of Reuben Fine’s classic “Basic Chess Endings”, including the revised edition edited by Pal Benko. Among the most interesting of Nunn’s comments is the observation that, contrary to the opinion of Fine and other world-class players of his era, modern tablebases reveal that <“the ending of Q +aP+bP vs. Q is generally drawn”> (ibid. at page 248). (The same would, of course apply to endings in which the two pawns were on the g- and h-files.) In T Karatekin vs P Hummel, 2003, the pawns were on the f- and g-files, and the position after 47. … Qxh6: 
click for larger view is a theoretical win. There were several points after that where White either missed the fastest win or actually allowed the position to become a theoretical draw. For example, 68. Kf6? threw away half-a-point (it was the “only drawing move”; in the position after 67. … Qc2, any other move that did not hang the White Queen was a theoretical win). Black quickly went wrong, however, with 69. … Qc3+ (when 69. … Qc7 was the only drawing move). A couple of dozen moves later, 93. Kf6? was again an “only” drawing move. Unfortunately for Black, he went wrong with 96. … Qb4+ (instead of 96. … Kg7!, a good “only drawing move”). In reply, White failed to find 97. Ke3! (only winning move), but after 98. Kc4, Black did not find any of three drawing moves (98. ... Qc8+ or 98. ... Qe4+ or 98. ... Kg7), and after 98. … Qc6+?, the position was winning for White and remained so to the end of the game (even though White did not always play the fastest winning move). It should finally be noted, however, that as late as move 108, in this position: 
click for larger view the plausible 108. Qg4 would have allowed a draw with 108. … Qf2+ (among other moves). After 108. Kh5!, Black’s next two moves hastened his loss by walking into a forced mate on the light squares. So, in conclusion, the comment somewhere in this thread that Black should have resigned “MUCH EARLIER” is completely off-base and reflects a lack of appreciation of the difficulty of Queen endings. |
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Sep-13-09
| | Peligroso Patzer: <al wazir: Wouldn't 58. Kg6 have been a surer and faster (much faster) way to win? If 58...Qc2+, then 59. f5 Qc7 (forced) 60. Qe6+ Kh8 (<60...Kf8 61. f6> Qc2+ 62. Qf5) 61. f6 Qh7+ 62. Kg5 wins.> Although 58. Kg6 is a winning continuation, it is not as fast as your analysis suggests. In the variation with 58...Qc2+ 59. f5 Qc7 60. Qe6+ Kf8, <61. f6?> is a blunder [the most accurate move here is actually 61. Qf6+, which wins in 25 moves). After 61. f6?, the stalemate theme allows Black to draw with 61. ... Qh7+!=. |
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| Sep-13-09 | | bengalcat47: For those who would like to study Queen endings in more detail I suggest Yuri Averbakh's book "Queen and Pawn Endings." It's written in the older style, descriptive notation, but the book is well worth
it for its extensive coverage of these difficult endgames. |
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| Sep-13-09 | | pferd: White has an easy win (thanks to endgame data base) at move 48: 48.Qb4+ angling to exchange queens by checking (or pinning) from f4 or h4. e.g. 48.Qb4+ Ke8 49.Qa4+ and fork King and Queen next move. |
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Sep-13-09
| | al wazir: <Peligroso Patzer: Although 58. Kg6 is a winning continuation, it is not as fast as your analysis suggests.> I agree. After I posted I found <58. Kg6 Qc2+ 59. f5 Qc7 60. Qe6+ Kh8 61. f6 Qh7+ 62. Kg5> Qg6+!, and white cannot take the ♕ because of stalemate. (There are other stalemate threats in alternate lines as well.) White wins by maneuvering his ♔ to the eighth rank. Eventually black has to check along the rank; white interposes his ♕; and after the next check the white ♔ moves off the rank, discovering check. |
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| Sep-13-09 | | JohnBoy: I like <sfm>'s 64.Kg6 as an immediate win. Even quicker than 65.f5 (after ...Qb1+) is the simple 65.Qf5+ and off come the queens. |
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| Sep-13-09 | | JohnBoy: While <pferd> points out a nice finish at move 48, I wonder if white could have done the job with 47.h7. It looks like black's only reasonable reply is 47...Qg7. Is there a cute finish here? |
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| Sep-13-09 | | DarthStapler: Interesting endgame |
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| Sep-13-09 | | whiteshark: <32...Qb2> looks better, at least it prevents white from playing 33.e6. |
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| Sep-13-09 | | sfm: <JohnBoy: sfm's 64.Kg6 ... Even quicker than 65.f5 (after ...Qb1+) is the simple 65.Qf5+ and off come the queens.> Eh, I just wanted to check if anyone paid attention... ;-) |
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Kibitzing
sac: 36.Bd5