Sunday, 17 August 2008

Van Perlo's Endgame Tactics

I've been meaning to buy a copy of "Van Perlo's Endgame Tactics" for a while, and last week I finally succumbed to the urge. For those that are unaware of this superb book, it is a collection of over 1000 endgame positions (from real games), that have tricky, spectacular and always educational solutions.
Now this isn't intended to be a book review (but I do recommend the book) but an exposition of a remarkable fact. Not all king and pawn endings are a forced win for IM Stephen Solomon. Of course almost all K+P endings are winning for Solomon but VPET has an ending from the 1985-86 Australian Championship where Aleks Wohl gets the better of him.
Wohl is white and quickly forces Solomon to resign, using the d pawn to try and bring the Black king to the centre, and then creating an outside passed pawn, which cannot be stopped. The variation after 1. ... Kd6 is particularly nice.

1.d5! [ 1.dxe5? Ke6 2.f4 Kd5 3.Ke3 Kc4=] 1...e4 [ 1...Kd6 2.g4 fxg4 3.fxg4 Kxd5 4.gxh5 Ke6 5.h6 Kf6 6.h5!] 2.g4! 1-0

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