White to move. Is this a win or draw for White? How should White proceed?
8/8/3N4/p2Pk2P/K5n1/8/8/8 w – – 0 2
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Knight and Pawn endgame
About Author
Nc4+ and the forking the black king and Knight by Ne3
It is a win for white.
1.nc4+,kxd5
2.ne3+ and then black cannot stop promotion of h5 pawn
Knight to c4 check with
Knight to e3 check after king takes pawn.
1. Nc4+ Kxd5?
2. Ne3+ Ke6
3. Nxg4 Kf7
4. Kxa5 and white should easily win.
1. Nc4+ Kf6
2. Kxa5 Ke7
3. Kg6 Kd7
4. d6 Kd8
5. Kc6 Kc8
6. d7+ Kd8
7. Kd6 Nf6
8. Ne5 and should win.
Knight can sacrifice for the last pawn. Draw.
1.Nc4+ Kxd5
2.Ne3+ Nxe3
3.h6
I think h-pawn will promote and after that white has to work into a Queen Vs. Knight endgame.
I haven’t checked all the lines but I presume 1 Nc4 is the key move.
1 Nc4 Kxd5
2. Ne3 Nxe3
3. h6 and the pawn cannot be stopped.
1. Nc4 Kd4
2. d6
1. Nc4 Kf6
2. d6 and I think this is hopeless for black though I have not analysed it properly.
nc4
A draw definitely, barring something like this happening:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
8 | | | | | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
7 | | | | | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
6 | | | | | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
5 | | | | | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
4 | | | | | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
3 | | | | | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
2 |p| |N| | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
1 |k| |K| | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
a b c d e f g h
1. Nc4+ Kxd5
2. Ne3+ Nxe3
3. h6
If Black resists to take the pawn on d5 (something like 1… Kf6) then 2. d6 winning.
Can’t White win as follows:
1. Nc4+ Kxp
2. Ne3+ NxN and both the King and the Black Knight cannot stop the h-pawn from queening.
Did I miss something?
To win this, white needs to draw the knight away from covering the h6 square. There are two ways to do this with double attack, but just on first principles, you would want to do it from the square that is farthest from h6 in order to make it most difficult for the black knight to get back to stop the pawn. White need not worry about d5 since taking it draws the black king out of the square of the h-pawn. These considerations suggests
1. Nc4 Kd5
2. Ne3 Ne3
3. h6 and the pawn is unstoppable. With his first move, black cannot take at d5:
1. Nc4 Kf5 (Kanywhere 2.d6)
2. d6 Ke6 (Nf6 below)
3. Ka5 and this is easily won by white now with the king in the game. At move 2, black does no better with
2. …..Nf6
3. h6! Kg6 (Ke6 4.Ka5)
4. Ne5! Kh7 (Kh6 5.Ng4 Ng4 6.d7+-)
And, I have to admit, it took me almost 15 minutes to see the winning continuation here, and I nearly missed the drawing knight fork below because I have difficulty with knights all around, but after this morning’s debacle with the rook + pawn vs queen endgame, I kept asking myself if black had an answer, and he does. I wanted to play Ka5, but black has a beautiful reply:
5. Ka5? Ne4!
6. d7 Nc5!
7. d8(Q) Nb7 forks the new queen in her birthing nest! White must bring the king into the play, but bypass the a5 pawn with
5. Kb5! a4 (everything loses now)
6. Ng4!
This was the move that was hard for me to see. Continuing:
6. …..Nd7 (Ng4 7.d7+-)
7. Ka4
White might be able to win without this, I haven’t looked, but why even take a chance you don’t have to? Continuing:
7. …..Nc5 (one last trick)
8. Kb5 Nc6 (Nd7 loses too)
9. Kc6 Nf8
10.d7 Ne6 (Nd7 is lost endgame)
11.Kd6 Nd8
12.Ke7 Nc6
13.Ke8 Kg6 (or anywhere else)
14.Ne5 and the d-pawn queens.
I think Nc4+ wins for white.
1. Nc4+ Kxd5
2. Ne3++
Now knight cannot capture knight as the h pawn queens, and king or the knight cannot reach in time. Similar is the case when
1. … Kf5 now white can advance his d pawn bringing black king out of the reach of h pawn. Kd4 and Kf4 don’t work as black king is completely shut down from the reaches of queening pawns.
1. … Kf6 is a little dubious, still I think in that case white can thrust forward his king to aid d pawn while black night is dead in guarding h pawn.
All in all its 1-0.
I agree with those who say this is a win for White, but actually achieving it
is very difficult, especially if Black can manage to have the king cover
the h-pawn and the knight the d-pawn. Obviously, Nc4+ is the correct 1st move.
And equally obvious is that 1…. Kxd5 is a big mistake. Black can make it
tougher for White with 1… Kf6 2. d6 Ke6, when Kxa5 is possible for White.
Even tougher is 1… Kf6, 2. d6 Nh6 3. d7 Ke7 4. Ne5 Kd8 5. Kxa5. I think this
wins for White, and their may be better moves for each side even in this
short stab at a solution.
But toughest of all to win, I think, is when Black plays to the king to f5
on the 1st move rather than to f6:
1. Nc4+ Kf5, since whenever I give this line a try, I find that White cannot
take 2. Kxa5 without yielding the draw.
This is a really, really tough position to crack.
Lucymarie