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There are only two possible first moves this can’t be too hard. 🙂
1. Kxd2?, Rxd5+ 2. Nd3!, Rxd3+ 3. Kxc2!, Rd4! 4. c8R!! is a well known win after Ra4 5. Rb3 but
1. -, c1Q+! 2. Kxc1, Rd7 and draw as 3. -, R(x)c7+ with drawn material or stalemate can’t be avoided.
1. Kxc2!, d1Q+ (Rd7? 2. c8Q, d1Q+ 3. Kxd1! and there is no stalemate left!) 2. Kxd1 (2. Nxd1?, Rd7! =), Rxd5+ 3. Nd3 and we have transposed in the winnig line above after Rxd3+ 4. Kc2! and so on.
Have I overseen anything?
Best wishes from Germany
Jochen
Jochen, your line is not complete 🙂 Black is still not lost after that, yet.
Best wishes,
Susan
1.Kxc2 [If 2.Kxd2? Rxd5+ 3.Kxc2 Rc5+=]
1…d1Q+
2.Kxd1 [Not 2.Nxd1? Rd7! 3.c8Q Rc7+! =]
2…Rxd5+
3.Nd3! Rxd3+
4.Kc2 and White wins, very nice and tricky indeed.
Pharaoh
1. Kxd2 Rxd5
2. Nd3 Rxd3
3. Kxc2 Rd4
4. c8R
Awesome puzzle!
1. Kxc2 d1=Q+ (rook can’t attack pawn at c7 at the moment)
2. Kxd1 Rxd5+
3. Nd3! Rxd3+ (can’t move to c5 because of knight
4. Kc2 Rd4
At this point, 5. c8=Q would be a blunder since .. Rc4+ 6. Qxc4 is a stalemate!
5. c8=R!! threatening mate at a8.
.. Ra4
6. Kb3 is now winning (attacking rook, and also threatening mate at c1)
Pharaoh, your answer is the same as Jochen. It is far from complete.
Best wishes,
Susan
Nice. Again one we can discuss together.
“[If 2.Kxd2? Rxd5+ 3.Kxc2 Rc5+=] ” (with move 2. and 3. being move 1. and 2, of course)
This overlooks Nd3 after Rxd5 doesn’t it? I think my proposal 2. -, c1Q is better and I still do not think 1. Kxd2 gives more than draw (with the given line above).
So what may we have overseen after 1. Kxc2? Let’s analyse move by move. The white threat of playing 2. c8Q is hard to avoid so what can black play now?
1. -, Rd8 is no alternative as long as the black pawn lives and can be captured with the king taking away the chance for stalemate (2. cxd8Q, d1Q+ 3. Kxd1). 1. -, Rxd5 at once? 2. c8Q gives no chance for a stalemate, does it? 1. -, Rc6 2. Bxc6. No, I do not see anything better than our proposed 1. -, d1Q+.
So 1. Kxc2, d1Q+ 2. Kxd1.
There is no stalemate idea at the moment and only Rxd5+ seems to avoid queening of the pawn. Is there anything better?
2. -, Rxd5+ 3. Nd3
Now the black rook cannot go to the c file and cannot go to d8. Is there any other move but Rxd3+ to avoid queening of the pawn?
I do not see one but 3. -, Rxd3+ gives the end of the famous Saavedra study which were already mentioned here. (4. Kc2, Rd4 5. c8R [threating mate], Ra4 (only move to prevent this) 6. Kb3 +- (I wrote Rb3 instead of Kb3 in my first post but it can’t be this typo Susan was talking about) as the black rook is going to fall or the black king is mated on c1.]
Our lines are “far from being complete” as Susan points out so there must be an oversee of a big black defense ressource here (which must occur on move 1 to 3 as the rest is a famous and well-known ending). Which ressource may this be?
I am really curios to know but do not see at the moment. I am looking forward to reading more comments. 🙂
Best wishes
Jochen
Susan, thanks for your answers to our posts. 🙂
1. Kxd2 c1Q 2. Kxc1 Rd7 3. c8Q Rc7+ draws
1. Kc2 d1Q+
2. Kd1 Rd5+
3. Nd3 Rd3+
4. Kc2 Rd4
5. c8R Ra4
6. Kb3+-
Oh, I was wrong.
This is the same puzzle as…
http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2009/06/white-to-move-and-win.html
…starting from move 2.
This is called pattern recognition. I would hope that some of you would have recognized it 🙂
Best wishes,
Susan
Hm. So I’d say there was nothing really missing was there?!
Looks like in comparison with ano 10.30 from the other post (thanks RobinFiveWords for the link!) my first line was the same (just the one move shorter of course (which I probably wouldn’t have found at that time)). So that may be an important thing to recognize that we’ve seen a position before (by the way – seeing the old post I cannot remember this puzzle at all – either my chess memory can’t keep things longer than two months or this must be one of the days I have not looked in here – I fear the first one) but I do not understand the “your line is not complete” declaration then. I would have said that we were missing an important point but the line was complete (or do I still miss anything in the analyses from the old post)?
But thanks for ‘remembering’ this old one (which was much harder wasn’t it?).
By the way: Most of us had a pattern recognition here but only short to the end: the Saavedre end game. 🙂
Best wishes
Jochen
(PS: Interesting to see that no one fell for 2. Kxd2 in the old post. That was the first line I calculated and long time liked it. :))
At first I thought it’s Nd3+ Kd1 Bf3 mate. lol. But I eventually figured it out
Jochen and all, what (I think) you are overlooking is Nimzovich’s advice that the threat is stronger than the execution. You are executing too quickly (for Black)!
Well, I’m writing this in 30 sec. without a computer, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but actually from experience I *do* know what I am talking about…
Is anyone else having trouble with this website. I get a continuous rotating circle on the tab in Firefox for this website (like its not fully finished loading the page)
Some of the images also don’t load
All other sites seem fine
Its started only recently.
Oops, never mind—I thought Black could delay …d1Q+, but it was an optical illusion. Hence Jochen’s solution looks complete to me.
I’ve had no slowness with the website in the past 30 minutes.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I reckognice a pattern here, namely the super-classic Saaverdra’s study.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saavedra_position
which I have seen in many variations, but they all lead to the classic ending.
1. Kxc2! d1Q+ ( 2. Kxd1 (2. Nxd1?, Rd7! =) Rxd5+ 3. Nd3 Rxd3+ 4. Kc2 Rd4! 5. c8=R, since c8=Q 6. Rc4+!! Qxc4 is stalemate.
As a Saaverdra pos it continues 5.- Ra4 (avoiding Ra8#) and black must give the rook to avoid 6. Rc1#
The line that all are missing is 1. K:c2 d1Q+, 2. N:d1.
Now Black can play …Rd8, since ed(any) is stalemate in the corner, but 3. Bb7 lifts the stalemate. Now the pawn must promote, to a won ending.