White to move. Can White hold on to this game?
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Endgame tactic
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White to move. Can White hold on to this game?
1. Bg3+ Kxg3
2. Ne4+ Kf3
3. Nxf2 Kxf2
4. Kxa7
The pawn promotes, and then White can force a draw by perpetual (I think). But can White win?
hi jcheyne
I think the eventual b8/Q covers the h2 square, so White wins.
Black could push his d pawn after Kxa7 and then that pawn can be pushed to d2 after white queens. There is a way for white to win from that position however I do not specifically recall it. I think I saw the method on a youtube video. The white queen forces the black king to d1, the queening square, which gains a tempo for the white king to move closer.
This has to be a draw with best play.
1.Bg3+ Kxg3
2.Ne4+ Kg2
3.Nxf2 KxN
4.Kxa7
And I think white should draw by advancing the h-pawn (Someone check the tablebase to make sure)
Ex:
4…..h5
5.b6 h4
6.b7 h3
7.b8(Q) Kg2
8.Qb2+ Kg1
9.Qc1+ Kg2
10.Qd2+ Kg1
11.Qe1+ Kg2 and white can’t make any progress.
By the way, I think black loses if 4….d5 is played instead.
Ex:
5.b6 d4
6.b7 d3
7.b8(Q) d2
8.Qd6! Ke2
9.Qe5+ Kf1
10.Qd4 Ke1
11.Qe3+ Kd1
12.Ka6 and white just march his king down for the kill.
Why should that be a draw? That is an easy win after 7.b8Q, Kg2
White approaches with check until he can capture h7 (Qb2+, Qb1+, Qxh7).
If black plays h2 now the game was drawn without d7 but so it’s an easy win.
Approaching the queen:
Qg6+, Kf2
Qf5+, Kg2
Qg4+, Kf2
Qh3 (!) (if black makes other king moves he still can’t avoid white reaching this position – until here it is elemental endgame knowledge and you all should know this).
Kg1 (forced)
Qg3+(!), Kh1 (forced)
Without d7 black was stalemated now (draw with queen versus a,h pawn, also with c and f pawn with a similar idea) o white simply mates:
Qf2, d5 (that makes the difference
Qf1+
Best regards
Jochen
Today in the morning I missed that white can win much shorter.
I still predict my variation above to be the easiest way with no need to calculate because after Qxh7 everything is “known”.
I captured h7 because that pawn there could possibly take away the queen some squares to disturb the natural winning algorithm.
Perhaps faster is to approach the queen to the kingside (Qb1+, c2+, d1+ and so on) and to finally place it on g4 forcing the king to h2. Now simply approaching the king mates (if black plays h5 we move the queen to g5 for example). Black has no chance of stalemating himself (saccing d7, and play Kh1, h3-h2, h5-h4-h3).
Just in addition to my post above, probably there are more ways to win…
White wins.
Fastest to my eye is by Qb1 after promoting.
Repeating the tempo gain just freezes Black’s game until White’s King makes ALL the difference.
But any 20 + sequence of moves against the other side’s best play isn’t easy necessarily.
A Knight, Bishop and King versus King basic checkmate is easy – if you know how to do it… if not, easy may not be the word used.
The “h” pawns for Black ultimately do not matter.
Merry Chessmas to all!!
Peter / chesstoplay