Black to move. How should Black proceed? Is this a draw or loss for Black?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Endgame calculation
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Black to move. How should Black proceed? Is this a draw or loss for Black?
c5 stops the pawns.
c5 stops the pawns and draws the game.
I disagree with u, since c5 doesn’t stop any pawns just leaves the d5 squere for white.
I think that after ..c5 b5 white’s king gets in and white wins.
I didn’t really check this but maybe the first move is: ..Kd6 Kd4 and now ..c5+ and if Ke4 and ..cb cb ..a5 and I think this draws, not sure though..
1 ..c5? loses to
2. a5 and black is in zungzvang
Right move is 1..a6
1..c5 than 2. b5 is even better.
black loses the opposition and white king penetrates
Isn’t a5 a draw??
1…c5! draws; other moves probably lose.
1…Kd6 might work as well, but only if it transposes to the …c5 lines, and …c5 is better because it just about forces b5 (as the King can’t move to d4 which is bad news for black in the …Kd6 line), so better to limit your opponent’s choices.
I disagree with egaion that 2 a5?! wins against 1…c5: just take the a-pawn: 2 a5 bxa5 3 bxa5 (or else the black a-pawn is passed and unstoppable) 3…a6 and the extra pawn is worthless and white’s king is locked out.
and while 2 b5 is better, again the white king doesn’t penetrate: 2…Kd6 3 Kf5 Kd7 4 Kg5 Ke7 5 Kf4 Ke7 etc., and the white king can’t penetrate and never can get to the base of the pawn chain way back on a7.
Finally, no, 1…a5 is not a draw: white has the devastating 2 c5! and if …bxc5 3 bxa5! and the past a-pawn marches to the endzone. So it’s important to not only cut the black king off from d4 but also to stop white from playing c5 himself here by first getting in the initial 1…c5.
P.S. After playing with this further, I’ve concluded that 1…Kd6 doesn’t work as well and loses to an immediate 2 c5! — for if 2…bxc5 3 b5!! is tough to respond to, as 3…cxb5 4 axb5 now ends up with black in zugswang after …Ke6 5 c4 Kd6 6 Kf5! and the black king must retreat and the c-pawn falls. And 3…Kc7 4 Ke5 Kc7 5 bxc6 Kxc6 6 c4 gives white the better king position to penetrate and put black in zugzwang and win the c pawn in a few more moves. So once again, 1…c5 is the only defense for black.
very nice tvtom!
I missed the key move 3..Kd7! only thought of the natural 3..ke7 which looses the opposition to 4.Ke5, but Kd7 4.Ke5 and then Ke7!
Good point regarding Kd6 2.c5! too..
One more thing to note is that after 1..c5 2.b5, if white tries to bring his king to b3 and play a5, black puts his king on b7 and on a5 take with ba, and whenever white plays ka4, black has kb6 and draw again (the point is that whites extra pawn is double and stuck and thus has no significance since it doesn’t give any extra tempo or any other added value..)