I saw this endgame earlier in chesstoday.net. This is a game between GM Kornev (2567) and Landa (2669). It is White to move. How should White proceed?
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i looked at the position for a few minutes, could not find anything, so i wanted to see the solution,
i loaded 3 different engines (shredder10, fritz9, rybka2.2) and all engines show “black win”,
hmmm.. i made a few moves but it did not change anything,
very interesting if white can get a draw somehow, first move probably white queen to h1, and then what?
trying to find perpetual (engines dont see any) or exchange the queens ?
I am not kidding, but what else but to resign!! I tried to look for the game did not find it!
Please let us know the solution. Please!!
b
I’m not at all sure, but I think W must be sure to be able to give the check on h1 whenever B can move his king to the first rank. B will therefore move his K to the third rank and beyond. Now W should maneuver so as to be able to give check on the long black diagonal whenever the black K is on the “a” file so as to pin the R on b2 against the unprotected Q and thus prevent B from interposing that R. For example, if the K were to get up to b7 the Q must give check on a square that would permit the Q to check on h8 if Ka8 or on f6 if Kh6. The only such square on the 7th rank would be g7. Perhaps B can maneuver his K in such a way as to prevent W from following this guide. I don’t know.
This is a draw position.
White can do perpetual check
1. Qh1+
Black will try to move his king
to a2, a8 or b1
but it can all be prevented by white because the position of two
black rooks and black queen are rather isolated.
after Qh1+, how can white stop black from
Kc2-Kb3-Ka2-Rb3-Qb2
?
After 1.Qh1+ Kc2 2.Qe4+ Kb3 3.Qe3+ the black king cannot move to the a-file (because of Qxa7+ and White is winning) 3…Kb4 4.Qb6+ etc. Black cannot escape the checks and must concede a draw.
Tried it out on my magnetic set in the train today.
1.Qh1+ Kc2 2.Qe4+ Kb3 3.Qe3+ Kb4 4.Qb6+
4. … Kc4 annoyed me for a while.
Took me 4 more (white) moves to ascertain my draw…
Interesting position, and ‘frederic’, possibly armed with FRITZ, has the right idea.
Interesting challenge for the chess software too. F10 doesn’t pick up that Qh1+ draws until level 12 in its search.
Plenty of quiescence around, so easy not to explore beyond the horizon.
I guess DEEP BLUE did not see the perpetual draw in the game it won against GK when he resigned unnecessarily. What do you think, frederic?
I think that there is just a chance for draw if white follows some rules.
* as soon as black threats to enter the first row white should be able to check on h1
* black should never be able to access b1
* black should never be able to access a2 without white’s queen attacking a7
* black’ king mustn’t break through to a8
This gives some pairs of squares (black king, white queen):
(e2, e4)
(d2, d5)
(c2, e4) [not c6 as I tried first, Kb1!]
(b3, ??) Qb6+ is wrong here because of Kc2!and the black king enters b1 or the first row without Qh1 possible; Qe3+ probably allows the black king to reach a8; so probably (b3, e6).
(b4, b6), (c4, c6)…
I am not quite sure if I am talking nonsense here but I think the way to the perpetual is really slim and there are many ways to fail.
Greetings
Jochen
Nice work, jochen. I think the (…, …) corresponding squares idea is the way to think about it.
Presumably, it’s all checks and the other White/Black men don’t move – so the squares idea works – like a King-Pawn ending.
The actual game can be found at:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1472459
After 33! consecutive checks, Landa conceded the draw.
Thanks for the game-ref, definitely one for the annals.
There were 15 checks after the given position, making 33 since the last capture. They could have gone another 17 but maybe the point was made by move 106.
Yeah, thanks for the link to the game. It showed me that I missed two important things:
1) There is another important defense possibility (against a black attack that I missed, too ;))
It is (a6, f6) and (a5, e5) with the black rook pinned!
2) Black’s king mustn’t enter the edge a8 but he may (and will) enter b7 or b8 as long as white gives the right checks (that not allow black to enter a8).
(b7, d5) for example (from the long diagonal)
(b8, d8) for example (from the eighth rank)
I just thought as soon as the king entered that region of the board it would be over.
“I think the (…, …) corresponding squares idea is the way to think about it.”
Thank you, especially for that I finally know the right english expression “corresponding squares” which are “Gegenfelder” in German. Learning english chess expressions is always nice.
Greetings
Jochen
ah so it took GM landa 15 teeth-gritting moves to agree to a draw (which he saw of course)