White to move and draw.
Source: ChessToday.net
Daily Chess Improvement: A brilliant classic
About Author
White to move and draw.
Source: ChessToday.net
Rh4!
The mainline has to be this: 1. Rh4 Bf6 2. Rh3 Bb5 3. Rf3 Bc6 4. Kh3 Bxf3 Stalemate
1. Rh4 Bf6
(1. … Ne3+ 2. Kf3 and either the knight or the h8 bishop falls 1/2-1/2)
2. Rh3!! Bb5
(2. … Nd2 3. Rd3+ 1/2-1/2)
3. Rf3! Bc6!
4. Kh3!! Bd7+
(4. … Bxf3?? stalemate)
5. Kg2 and White draws
White would love to either be able to capture the knight, or skewer the two bishops safely. Now, 1.Ra8 will lose to Bc6+. The knight needs to escape the king’s clutches, and to so must move to either d2 or e3, so my first thought is to place the rook a3 so that he can cover e3 directly, and skewer the knight on d2 with Rd3+. Let’s see where that takes us:
1. Ra3
Now white is threatening KxN. The only moves I see for black are to protect the knight with Bb5, or to attack the rook with Bb2. Bb2 might look drawish after 2.Rd3 check, but then white cannot immediately capture the knight without allowing the pin and capture of the rook at d3 with 2. …Ke5! 3.KxN Bb5 4.Ke2 Ke4-+. With these complications, let’s deal with the two moves separately starting with the latter one:
1. …..Bb2
2. Rb3
Now black has two pieces en prise, and neither piece can protect the other, and there are no knight forks available to recapture the rook if it takes at b2. This line is surely a draw. So, we can safely return to 1 …Bb5 protecting the knight:
1. …..Bb5
Now the knight is threatening to escape through d2 (d3 is now covered). White has no checks on the black king. He has only the attacks on the b5 bishop from a5 and b3, and the attack on the h8 bishop from h3. Of these, the attacks on the b5 bishop are more promising. Attacking the h8 bishop will just allow black to bring this bishop to either e5 or d4 where it is closer to it’s king, and leaving white with the same problem as before, but with fewer options. So, let’s look at Ra5 and Rb3:
2. Ra5
Threatens Rxb5, even if black protects with Kc6/c5 (white then sacrifices at b5 followed by KxN). The bishop must either move, or the knight must move to e3. I think black wins with either option, but the bishop move seems necessary anyway:
2. …..Bc4 (Bd3 should be ok too)
Black is again threatening to move the knight out of danger, and to either d2 or e3. White has, as far as I can tell, the same option as previously- attack the c4 bishop again to threaten to win two pieces for the rook:
3. Ra4 Nd2
And I think black has safely extracted the knight. The win from this point is surely difficult, and likely 30 moves or more away, but the material advantage is decisive with proper play. So, let’s back up the white’s second move and see if Rb3 is any better:
2. Rb3 Bc4 (clearest to me)
3. Rb4 Nd2 with what should be winning.
So, I think that white will lose with 1.Ra3. I don’t see how white prevents the knight’s escape.
Continued in my next comment.
In my previous comment, I thought that 1.Ra3, to prevent the immediate escape of the knight via d2 or e3 might suffice to hold for white, however, after 1. …Bb5, I couldn’t see a method for preventing the sequence of Bc4 and Nd2 safely extracting the knight from the white king’s clutches. Other moves like Ra6+ don’t seem helpful in this endeavor as they allow the black king to get closer without any loss of time. So, this seems to leave only one move- Rh4 attacking the dark-squared bishop:
1. Rh4
Black now has two pieces en prise. There is only one move to save both for the time being-Bf6 attacking the rook:
1. …..Bf6
Now, what for white? The black knight is again threatening to escape via d2 or e3. I see only 3 possible moves- the attacks on dark squared bishop from f4 or h6 (Re4 loses to Bc6), or a mirror move like I discussed in the previous comment where white directly covers the e3 escape square and indirectly covers the d2 square by threatening a skewer from d3- namely, playing 2.Rh3. It isn’t hard to see how Rh6 and Rf4 fail:
2. Rh6 Ne3+
3. Kany Nd5 protecting the f6 bishop. Same will apply ot 2.Rf4 So, we are left with 2.Rh3. From the top:
1. Rh4 Bf6
2. Rh3
So, white is threatening to take the knight, who cannot move without getting captured at d2 or e3. Black cannot attack the rook with Bd7 without allowing Rd3+ followed by Rxd7 and Kxf1. This leaves only the protection of the knight from b5 as a plausible winning strategy:
2. …..Bb5
Now, white has only the attacks on the white squared bishop. We already know that Rh6 will fail to Ne3+ followed by Nd5. We also can see that Rh5 will fail to the same maneuver of Ne3+ as Nd5 shields the bishop at b5 from the rook. Finally, we know that Rb3 will fail to Bc4 followed by a subsequent Nd2. This leaves only 3.Rf3:
3. Rf3
Attacks the unprotected bishop at f6, and double attacks the knight at f1. There is only one move that saves both pieces for the moment- the pin of the rook with Bc6:
3. …..Bc6
Now black is threatening to either move the knight out of danger, or capture the rook if white takes at f1. If white unpins the rook with Kf2, black just takes at f3 followed by Nd2 leaving him with the difficult, but winning B+N vs K ending. This leaves only one move left to look at, but it contains a surprise:
4. Kh3!!
And black cannot capture the rook without stalemating white on h3. If black moves the knight, white captures at f6 for the draw, and if he moves the f6 bishop, white captures at f1 for the draw. This leaves only the check from d7:
4. …..Bd7
5. Kg2 with a minimum of a draw by repetition coming.
A very pretty chess problem.
This is an interesting chess problem, and I am sure that we want to look at it again, even though it appeared in 2013.
The problem is, and this is something I have commented on in the past, that your algorithm is not only repeating even recent problems, but it is also including all the original comments.
Please can you get someone to work on this.
Thank you.
Good were those old days when Lucymarie Ruth used to give her mature comments. Nowadays she is not seen on the blog. She disappeared when I was absent from the blog for sometime. Only yancey may be knowing.
As I wrote before, I don’t know what happened to her. I also miss her comments, but many have not returned since the blog migrated platforms. Even pht has vanished. I suspect a lot of it has to do with the fact that the comments are no longer held for a day or so. Even worse, reposts now include the old comments. I suspect that whoever is actually running the blog has too much to do.
I think I have seen pht’s comments a few days back. Lucimarie however vanished quite some time before the new format. If you look at her photo she looks quite aged. i pray God to keep her hale and healthy even though she has left the blog.