White to move. How should White proceed?
8/6k1/4R3/7p/5P1r/5P2/8/6K1 w – – 0 46
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Does Re4 and then f5 force a swap into a won pawn endgame?
Rd4 K any
f5
re4 kf6
f5! rxr
pxr 1-0
It is tempting to box the rook in and use this to undouble the f-pawns:
1. Re4 Kf6 (Kg6?? 2. f5+-)
2. f5! Re4 (Kg5?? 3. Rh4, 4. f6)
3. fe4 Kg5
4. Kg2 h4
5. Kh3 Kf6 (Kh5 6. e5)
6. Kh4 wins for white
1. Re4 followed by f5 no matter what Black plays.
Re4 then followed by Kg2 and Re1. Black’s rook is trapped and can be captured by the White King.
A better line, I think is …
Re4 Kf6
f5! Rxe4
fxe4
The white king can stop the black pawn but the black king cannot touch the white pawns at all. Eventually, black will run out of moves as the white King moves up and tries to capture the black pawn.
re4 kg2 f5 1-0 easyyy
One approach is: 1. Re4 Kf6 2. f5
1.Re4 with the idea of limiting the black rook’s square. If the King moves to f5 then Kg3 + Re5 wins a pawn
Re4!
followed by
f5
wins
Re4 and Black’s rook looks trapped.
Re5
1.Re4 Kf6 2.f5!
As the black rook is trapped
1. Re4 to protect the f4 pawn.
Afterwards f5. Any rook exchange will lead to a lost pawn end game.
And if black plays Rh3 it’s lost after Kg2
1.Re4! Kf6 2.f5! (Rh3 3.Kg2!+-) Rxe4
3.fxe4 +-
The first thing I noticed is that the black rook has no moves if the f4 pawn is protected, so let’s start with
1. Re4 Kf6 (if Kg6, then 2.f5+ gets the black rook or queens the f pawn)
2. f5
now black is stuck. RxR loses and the rook has no other square to move to so a rook exchange is forced on the next move. If black plays
2…. Kg5
then
3. RxR Kx4
4. f6 and the pawn queens
1. Re4 Kf6 2. f5 Kg5 3. R:h4