White to move. Is this a win or draw? How should White proceed?
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White to move. Is this a win or draw? How should White proceed?
I like these end game studies but what I would like even more is if the readers of this blog got to play a game against Susan. Maybe one move everyday and we get to vote on the move from a selection of say 10 possible moves. The move with the most votes gets played and then we get to discuss the strategy for the next day. A honor system would be required with no computer help. What about this idea?
Call it Susan verses the Rest of the World !!!
Looks like a draw to me, so how should White proceed? Propose the draw, I’m sure Black will accept it.
its a win for white
White moves his king to the “a” pawn. The Black King cannot keep the opposition to prevent the White king from reaching the pawn becoz of the extra “g” pawn
Uh? Give me actual moves to a win, and I’ll tell you which black move I disagree with.
Dozens of computers playing against Susan? This is not plausible.
“its a win for white
White moves his king to the “a” pawn. The Black King cannot keep the opposition to prevent the White king from reaching the pawn becoz of the extra “g” pawn “
The Black play with the Rock on a-line, no needs to move the King. And what when the White King reach to the “a” pawn? The Black only needs to check with the Rock. I think this is a draw.
I believe its a win. Move order is not terribly important, this is one of those areas where endgame knowledge beats 20 ply calculation. The black king must remain on g7 and h7. The black rook must remain on the a file except for checks.
Solution: White move in the open and breaks a series of checks by approaching the rook. He then pushes the g pawn. Rinse and repeat. Now the g pawn prevents h7 and is itself taboo. Black can do no better than a lost rook against queen ending.
Nice theory but it doesn’t work. It’s no way for White to capture the Black Rook! The Black can always play Ra1-Ra6-Ra1, or (when the White King reach b5 or c6) Ra1-Rb1-Rc1 whith checks.
I know the answer. Can be looked
up on this website:
http://www.shredderchess.com/
online-chess/
online-databases/endgame-database
.html
But it’s more fun to try first!
… or equivalently, http://www.k4it.de/index.php?topic=egtb&lang=en …
… which says it’s a draw.
To discover how hard White can make it for Black would require further chess-engines facilities, and/or human insight. I expect Black’s rook is confined to the a-file and White’s Rook is not well placed in front of its P (it should be behind the P)
http://chess.jaet.org/endings/ is a multi-metric site (not doing 6-man P-less endings though). Both sites are v useful.
Either site reveals that the KRPKR puzzle set by RDK in last week’s Spectator was incorrect.
g
Easy draw. Rook remains on a-file, keeping the white rook tied down on the a8 square. Black does of course have to remain on g7 or h7, but there’s truly no reason to ever move from g7. If the white king ever tries to help support the a pawn, black simply checks from the first rank. If the white king attacks the black rook, the rook simply moves along the a-file. Notably, white cannot sac the a pawn in an attempt to win as black reaches an easy philidor position with regards to the g pawn which is drawn.
I know some may not believe this, but give it a try playing the white side vs fritz and you’ll soon see how many resources black does have.
Dead draw. Confirmed with 6-man tablebases.
R7/P5k1/8/6K1/6P1/8/8/r7 w – – 0 1
Telling us that it is a confirmed draw from the tablebases really ruined this one for me.
Please do not post such on the blog until very late after people have worked the problem for a long time.
I guess you needed to show how smart you are. yes real smart.
Now that everyone knows how smart you are there is no more need to prove it. So keep it to yourself.
Yes, this is a tablebase position, and a draw. I admit that as a correspondence chess player the position has little interest, such endings are “book” and solving them is a matter of memorization or looking them up, like opening positions are.
However, one can learn from WHY this is a draw, and why a stronger player can see at a glance it is almost definitely a draw.
When a rook is in front of a passed pawn, advancing it all the way to the 7th rank is almost always a draw, since your rook has nowhere to move to. The only way to win is to move Rh8 and after …Rxa7 play Rh7+ and win the rook. Here the Black King guards h8 and cannot be forced away because the White king cannot “flank” as it will be subject to too many checks.
With the g4 pawn on f4 White can force a win as the Black King cannot hold on g7.
With the kingside formation moved from the g-file to the f-file, even with Black to move (White to move wins on the spot with 1.Rh8) White can force a win because he has room to manuever the King.
It is worth trying to find a win here, just to help you remember than when your king is in front of your passed pawn, be very careful before you move the pawn to the 7th as you will “freeze” your rook out of the game.
By the way it would be great if after a day or two Susan would post her solution/answer to these questions.
With the a7 pawn on a6 White can win because the rook can go to a7.
This site has an invaluable information for my chess learning. I like the problem selection that Susan make every day for us, the humans. I don’t think Susan is challenging computers or tablebases to solve this kind of problems, but us, humans, instead. If so, please do not post computer/tablebases opinion because we know how accurate they can be. Post the solution “as yours”, if you want to. That way we will continue to try to find the answer not for the purpouse of just finding it, but for the learning process involved in finding the answer. Sorry for my english, it is not my mother’s tonge.
I’m sorry but I do not agree with you. I trust Susan as and Educator. If she is asking if it is a win or a draw, I’m sure it is important. I don’t know the principles you mention because I’m quiet new to chess and I think it is a motivation to solve the problems not to know the answers from the machines.
shahkmat: the position is important because it illustrates important principles. i’m not susan, but to me, in a learning environment the question of whether the position is drawn or not is secondary to why this is so.
the tablebase verdict doesn’t explain what these principles are or why they hold. you can still try to figure that out for yourself (also, many other posters have already provided valuable hints and insights into the position), or you could study an endgame book.
maybe you feel that quoting the tablebase verdict is similar to revealing that “the butler did it”, and if so i can’t counter that as i never really felt this way about chess.
ShakhMat and Anonymous,
I respect both of your positions. One should arrive at his solution without aid of the trusty chess software or table-bases. However, it is important to understand the “why” of the position. If you remember the “why” of it, one should be able to play accurately no matter which color or what side of the board. I find myself trying to solve these, but what happens is I actually recall the positions and what moves to play, an example of pattern recognition. This is what I believe Susan is trying to accomplish…ingraining the pattern in our heads so we will know the concept and the result. Just view on of her DVDs and you will understand. The best part is when you are playing OTB at some weekend tournament and one of her positions are on the board; you’ll know what to do! Better yet, seeing the possibility of one of these known positions and playing for it and the know result!!! You go Susan.
How would it be a win with the kings + pawn on f-file and Black to move (Kg7 I guess)?
There are more options for white but I don’t see the winning one. How can he “flank” the Black king, as ken puts it?
I would rather not have seen the tablebase answer. I look at that position and see: white is up 2 pawns, a win for sure. Yeah there’s this nuisance that the pawn on the 7th limits the W rook mobility and then scratch my head looking for solutions. I think most patzers like me would do that, so the exercise’s point is to get people to teach themselves byy exhausting all the ways of trying to get a win out of it and seeing that they don’t work.
I think it’s drawn with g-pawn or h-pawn, a win with f-pawn. With f-pawn, White simply pushes the f-pawn and Black loses. For instance, if Black’s King plays Kxf7, then Rh8! wins. (…Rxa7 Rh7+). Or if the King captures the pawn earlier, such as Kxf6, then Rf8+ and a8(Q). The Black Rook is chained to the a-file. If it checks the White King, then the King simply proceeds back until the Black Rook is attacked, at which point it must switch back to the a-file. Then the f-pawn marches up and it’s a win as described.
Sometimes being an old-timer (back when computers were just fumblers) can be a help.
I remember reading about a similar position in an old Chess Life and Review, circa 1978, where a player moved hastily and freed up his g-pawn rather than his f-pawn. The player tried for over 100 moves but could never dislodge Black’s King from g7.
The funny thing was, the annotator got it wrong! The first player could have won the ending with a lot of work even after his mistake. He ran his distant Pawn (in this case it was a b-pawn) to b7 rather than to b6. With the Pawn there, White’s King can hide on b7 and evade the checks, while White’s Rook goes mano a mano with Black’s Rook and, with a good bit of work, frees White’s King to hide behind it and clear a path for the Pawn.
I also have read BCE (old version) and Keres’ PCE (Practical Chess Endings). It’s very bad for White’s Rook to be stuck on a8 in this case because the only way to win is hope Black’s King strays off g7 or h7 and permits 1. Rh8, Rxa7 and now 2. Rh7+ is a skewer or X-ray (your choice of what to call it). An f-pawn would eventually force Black’s King to f7 to blockade it, but a g-pawn or h-pawn can’t.
Susan is quite right in saying you can’t use a computer during a game (which frankly would take all the fun out of it). I don’t even play against my computer at home, although I’m not opposed to using computers for analysis.
I hope analysts will continue to WRITE up games rather than let the computer do the talking for them — they can explain the motivations of the players and the reasons for playing good and bad moves, as well as how the players feel. (Sorry if that sounded redundant.) I’d rather see a player and a master comment on the same game than see long columns of analysis that don’t give me the real feel for the position.