Rook position
I bought myself a new book about rook endings with the swirling title: 1000 rook positions from GM Joséf Pintér.
A quickly opened the book looked at the first position and thought by myself well the first position seems to be solvable.
Test position 1 from N. Grigorjev 1945 – I should have known.
I had 2 thoughts 1. Kc5 and 1.Rh7. So I decided to analyse 1. Kc5 first as this seems to be to my experience the correct answer.
On 1 Kc5+ Black has 4 possible replies.
If the Black king goes to the a-file we have a draw as the white rook will never allow the black king to go off to the b-file. Other tries by challenging the rook on the b-file leads to no avail.
So only 1.Kc3 and 1.Kc2 remain to be looked at.
I pictured the following series of moves
First I give check and separate the black king from the pawn.
I swing the rook to the h-file and bring the rook aside, giving black a perpetual check. No place to hide.
Therefore the black king will probably try to approach the rook. When the king comes close enough, I shall swing the rook over to the a-file and make sure the white king will be the first at the pawn. In this way the pawn + rook can be exchanged for the rook.
So a couple of sequences that shows the idea.
1.Kc5+ Kc3 2.Rh7 a3 3.Rh3+ Kd2 4.Rh2+ Ke3 5.Rh3+ Kf4 6.Rh4+ Kg5 7.Rh1 a2 8.Ra1 Kf4 9.Kd4 Kf3 10.Kc3 Ke2 11.Kb2=
[9...Ra3 10.Kc4 Ke3 11.Kb4 Rd3 12.Rxa2=]
Well if you have accepted this explanation you obviously -just like I did- missed something crucial.
So what did I miss?
The hiding place!
As shown in the diagram the black king can hide himself from the white rook behind the white king. Whatever the next move of the rook, this will be answered by the check on the white king which in turn will free black’s king position. Now the black king can support again the advance of the black pawn. The win is not immediate obvious but the white king has been shielded of.
1.Kc5+ Kc3 2.Rh7 a3 3.Rh3+ Kc2 4.Rh2+ Kb3 5.Rh3+ Ka4 6.Rh4+ Ka5 (diagram) 7.Rh3 Rc8+! 8.Kd4 Kb4
· 9.Rf3 9...a2+- (keeping the rook on the same rank)
· 9.Rh2 Ra8 10.Ra2 Kb3+- (blocking the progress of the pawn)
· 9.Rh7 Rb8! 10.Ra7 Kb3+- (try to attack the black king from behind)
For clarity the position is a draw
A quickly opened the book looked at the first position and thought by myself well the first position seems to be solvable.
Test position 1 from N. Grigorjev 1945 – I should have known.
I had 2 thoughts 1. Kc5 and 1.Rh7. So I decided to analyse 1. Kc5 first as this seems to be to my experience the correct answer.
On 1 Kc5+ Black has 4 possible replies.
If the Black king goes to the a-file we have a draw as the white rook will never allow the black king to go off to the b-file. Other tries by challenging the rook on the b-file leads to no avail.
So only 1.Kc3 and 1.Kc2 remain to be looked at.
I pictured the following series of moves
First I give check and separate the black king from the pawn.
I swing the rook to the h-file and bring the rook aside, giving black a perpetual check. No place to hide.
Therefore the black king will probably try to approach the rook. When the king comes close enough, I shall swing the rook over to the a-file and make sure the white king will be the first at the pawn. In this way the pawn + rook can be exchanged for the rook.
So a couple of sequences that shows the idea.
1.Kc5+ Kc3 2.Rh7 a3 3.Rh3+ Kd2 4.Rh2+ Ke3 5.Rh3+ Kf4 6.Rh4+ Kg5 7.Rh1 a2 8.Ra1 Kf4 9.Kd4 Kf3 10.Kc3 Ke2 11.Kb2=
[9...Ra3 10.Kc4 Ke3 11.Kb4 Rd3 12.Rxa2=]
Well if you have accepted this explanation you obviously -just like I did- missed something crucial.
So what did I miss?
The hiding place!
As shown in the diagram the black king can hide himself from the white rook behind the white king. Whatever the next move of the rook, this will be answered by the check on the white king which in turn will free black’s king position. Now the black king can support again the advance of the black pawn. The win is not immediate obvious but the white king has been shielded of.
1.Kc5+ Kc3 2.Rh7 a3 3.Rh3+ Kc2 4.Rh2+ Kb3 5.Rh3+ Ka4 6.Rh4+ Ka5 (diagram) 7.Rh3 Rc8+! 8.Kd4 Kb4
· 9.Rf3 9...a2+- (keeping the rook on the same rank)
· 9.Rh2 Ra8 10.Ra2 Kb3+- (blocking the progress of the pawn)
· 9.Rh7 Rb8! 10.Ra7 Kb3+- (try to attack the black king from behind)
For clarity the position is a draw
posted by Montse at 3:31 AM
2 Comments:
Hi! Nice blog on chess.
Do you want to share links?
My blog on chess and technology is guillembaches
Best Regards,
IM Guillermo Baches
I just launched Chess.com a few days ago and I am looking for a great chess blogger who might give me some feedback on the blogging platform we have at chess.com. We have some amazing new and simple tools for posting chess games, diagrams, and puzzles into web pages very easily. (see http://www.chess.com/blog/view/a-very-messy-game and http://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-rules--basics and http://www.chess.com/article/view/can-you-find-checkmate-10-pr as examples of articles and posts you can easily create right in your browser).
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