White to move. Can you win this as White against the top level of Fritz, Junior or Rybka? Play it out to improve your endgame skill.
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Rook and Pawn endgame
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No, I can’t. If I move the knight to close in on a mate, the a pawn is just too fast. Does anyone know guidelines how to handle this? Knights and outside pawns are always too hard to understand for me.
There shouldn’t be any knights in a “Rook and Pawn Endgame.”
rh4 would appear tobe key to solving this. It prevents black’s rook from getting anywhere near the g5 square. In fact…where can black that does anything useful? and by useful I mean preventing white’s next move from being rh6
I would start with 1.Rg4. Black must free his/her rook, or else white plays 2.Rg6. Thus 1.-Rf8 2.Rg7+ Kc8 3.Rg6 Rf5+ 4.Kb6 Rxh5 5.Rc7+ Kd8 (5.-Kb8 6.Rh7)
6.Rxb7 looks like a simple win?
I’d like to give my thought process (there are probably too much concrete variation…).
1.Rg4
I see that after Rg7+ (or Rf7+ or even Re7+) black’s king must go back and b7 could be lost (–Kb6…).
Black must be active and try counterplay against this plan:
1) Attacking b3 with his rook: I will protect with my king and take on h6: It seems a win for white (3 pawns against 1) but must be concretely analyzed.
2) Stop Rg7+ with …Rh7 but then Rg6: zugzwang (…Rh8 Rg7+; …Rg– Rxh6; …Kc8 Kb6 and both pawns are attacked (I don’t see any concrete defence)
3) Try a trick …Rc8 (after Rg7+ …King move with discovered check) I won’t give a check but try to advance my queen-side pawns and continue with the same ideas.
Question: Do you see other important ideas and/or do you think some of my ideas are not important or not accurate (or silly).