Zinar, 1990
White to move. How should White proceed?
6k1/8/4P1Kp/8/8/8/p4p2/8 w – – 0 0
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
A difficult K and P endgame
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Zinar, 1990
White to move. How should White proceed?
6k1/8/4P1Kp/8/8/8/p4p2/8 w – – 0 0
White wins by e7 f1Q, e8Q Qf8, Qe6 Kh8, Qe5-d5-d4-c4-c3-b3-b2-a2-b2-b3 ect… until he can just play Qd4+ Kg8, Qd7 mating
Solved immediately. Humans faster than computers here
e7 f1Q, e8Q Qf8, Qe6 Kh8, Qe5-d5-d4-c4-c3-b3-b2-a2-b2-b3 is good, except black still has a Queen on f8, so no mate. the problem for white is trying to win the h pawn, which can be done by bringing the queen back to e5 and then Kh5.
I confess that I didn’t immediately understand why the h-pawn needed to be there. Then I saw that without it, 4.Qh3+ would spoil the composition.
There is no need to win the h pawn.
1. e7 f1Q
2. e8q+ Qf8
3. Qe6+ Kh8
4. Qe5+ Kg8
5. Qd5+ Kh8
6. Qd4+ Kg8
7. Qc4+ Kh8
8. Qc3+ Kg8
9. Qb3+ Kh8
10. Qb2+ Kg8
11. Qxa2+ Kh8
12. Qb2+ Kg8
13. Qb3+ Kh8
14. Qc3+ Kg8
15. Qc4+ Kh8
16. Qd4+ Kg8
17. Qd7 +-
I’m at work so I can’t check my math with HIARCS; hope I haven’t missed anything.
anon3.27 1, anon4.02 0, as hinted at by anon4.50. 🙂
This is incredible. The endgame 6 pieces actually has a solution to it. I have that endgame database installed, and Fritz basically just iterates through it without even thinking.
Above solution is correct… to continue: … Kg8, Qd7
Kh8, a1=? or h5 is met by Qh7++
Qf7+ or Qg7 is Qxf/g7++
Qe8+ is Qxe8++
and Qd6+ or Qf6+ is Qxd/f6 followed by Qd8++
in german it is the “rolltreppe” – in english i guess it is the “moving stairs” theme … i know some even more nice ones… 🙂
greetz and thx
Simple, but nice. What’s missing is why immediate 3.Qd7 doesn’t work: 3.-Qf6+! (or Qf5+) should draw.
I was the first anon. ( 3:27). I didn’t mention because I thought it was clear that if you play Qd7 immediately then black has Qf6+ and a1=Q+ getting out of it. That is why you need to win the a pawn with check first. Anyway, I think the subsequent anon ( 4:02) missed something. Without a tablebase, I wonder if fritz would find the solution in less than 3 seconds as a normal 2400 would. I stand by my claim that humans are faster than computers at this problem.