White to move. Is white winning, losing, or drawing? How should white proceed?
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White should be winning with
1.h4 Kf6 2.Kh7!!
This move seems paradoxical, for it takes White from being one move ahead in the pawn race to being one move behind, since the king must move again to free the h-file for the pawn. However, White’s point is to exploit the alignment of the squares h8, f6, a1 for a winning skew.
2…a5 3.h5 a4 4.h6 a3 5.Kg8 a2 6.h7 a1=Q 7.h8=Q+ +-
This position is draw, because after white moves pawn on h6, black must play Kf7 and continue to block white king. So I think this position is draw.
I agree here. pumpf has a case of wishful thinking, and stopped thinking at the skewer line. black traps the king in the corner, thats the best he can do
however, astonishingly, its a win for black! see cortex below.
1.h4 Kf6 2.h5 Kg5 3.Kg7 Kxh5 4.Kf6 a5 5.Ke5 It’s drawing.
1.h4 Kf6 2.h5 a5?? 3.h6 a4 4.h7 a3 5.h8=Q+ White is winning.
1.h4 Kf6 2.h5 Kg5 3.Kg7 a5?? 4.h6 a4 5.h7 a3 6.h8=Q a2 7.Kf2 White is winning.
1.Kg7?? a5 2.h4 a4 3.h5 a3 4.h6 a2 5.h7 a1=Q+ 6.Kg8 Qa8+ 7.Kg7 Qf8+ 8.Kg6 Qh8 Black is winning.
I like endgame. I’m making a website about K Q vs K R. The website is written in Japanese.
http://kqvskr.blogspot.jp/
This comment has been removed by the author.
I think I mistook the solution. 🙂
I think it is a draw. White plays
1. Kg7
Now Black cannot prevent White pawn so he must move his pawn.
1 … a5 2. h4 a4 3. h5 a3 4. h6 a2 5. h7 a1=Q+ 6. Kg8
This is actually a draw because Black Queen cannot prevent White pawn from promoting.
Dead draw. First, white cannot move the king on the first move since Kg7 will allow black to queen with check before the white pawn reaches h8. Also, Kh7 just blocks his pawn for a critical lost tempo. So, the first move must be h4. The framing of the problem disguises the real issue in this sort of position- the real issue is how does black draw this position?
1. h4 Kf6!
Before continuing, we must understand why a5 loses. If both players just push the pawns, white queens the half-move ahead of black and covers the a1 square with his queen, thus winning the game. Now, it seems that 1. …Kf6 must lose a tempo, but not all is as it appears to be- with Kf6, black is stealing a march on the white king to win the h-pawn and the game. It is noteworthy that black cannot transpose moves here either since playing a5 first, then Kf6 second won’t work since this allows the white pawn to march close enough to reach the umbrella of his king’s defence. Continuing:
2. h5
White has no other move here. There is no way for white to get inside the queening square of the black pawn (i.e.- there is no way for the white king to catch the a-pawn- he is just too far away). In addition, if he tries to keep the black king from winning the h-pawn by playing Kh7, he loses too much time, but I will this to the curious since what follows below should allow one to easily figure out why 2.Kh7 is a losing move. Continuing:
2. …..Kg5!
The only draw of course. Indeed, this even has the appearance of being a winning move, but, again, not all is as it appears. Obviously, pushing the a-pawn is going to lose since white will push the h-pawn to h6-h7-h8 to win the race, so black must take out the h-pawn first. Continuing from 2. …Kg5 above:
3. Kg7!
The only move to draw. It carries the threat of 4.h6 bringing the pawn under the white king’s defensive reach- this forces black to capture at h5 on the next move since his a-pawn still cannot win the race. The move of 3.Kf7 will cost white the game since black can push a5 to get his pawn far enough ahead of the white king that it cannot be stopped, nor can white take the time to push h6 since black then has the time to capture, and still queen his pawn successfully. Forcing black to capture on the h-file gives white the time needed to stop the a-pawn. Continuing from 3.Kg7 above:
3. …..Kh5!
4. Kf6 and the rest is a trivial draw since 4. …..a5 is met by 5.Ke5 and the white king is inside the square formed by a5-e5-e1-a1, and the white king will reach b2 the move after the black pawn reaches a2.
To Shindou Math:
1. Kg7 loses a crucial tempo
after
1 … a5 2. h4 a4 3. h5 a3 4. h6 a2 5. h7 a1=Q+ 6. Kg8
You are normally right: a, c, f and h pawns usually draw against queen when at the verge of promotion.
But here the Black King is too near his homologue!
A simple sequence like
6…Qa8+ 7.Kg7 Qf8+ 8.Kg6 Qh8 is enough to win
More contorted but elegant is the witty 6…Qf6!! (forcing White to subpromote in Knight because if 7.h8Q Qf7#!!)
7.h8N Qh6
8.Nf7 (again forced if White doesn’t want to lose his Knight outright) Qg6+
9. Kh8 Kf8!! (9…Kf6 works too) lets the Knight live to avoid stalemate but the threat 10…Qg7# cannot be parried.
It’s draw 1.h4 Kf6 2.h5 Kg6 3.Kg7!! and draw
GN Yancey has drank too much egg nog and has blundered miserably.
However he has shown that he clearly does not use a computer. He is often correct and we now know know that his comments are his own and not some silicon regurgitation.
Merry Christmas
Pumpf is not correct, it seems… because if
1.h4 Kf6 2.Kh7? then 2…Kf7 3.h5 a5 4.h6 a4 5.Kh8 a3 6.h7 a2 Stalemate.
Kamalakanta
1.h4 Kf6 2.Kh7?? then 2. … a5, 3. h5 a4, 4. h6 Kg5! 5. Kg7, a3, 6. h7 a2, 7. h8Q a1Q+ and black wins
Again, this is another interesting problem, where the ‘algorithm’ has posted the problem AND the solutions from 2012.
Can we please have the problem only?
Thank you,