Tuesday 22 June 2010

Good Night


I quite enjoy the Weekly Endgame Study at Chessvibes, although I can barley solve even one. However looking at the answer the following week is just as much fun, due to clever selection of problems by IM Yochanan Afek. An example is the problem shown on the right. It is White to play and Draw. I'll give you a day or two to solve it before putting the answer in the comments section (or you can just go to Chessvibes and look for the answer!)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nd4 would be my pick because it does a couple of things. Obviously stopping the immediate queening and stopping black's queenside knight from stopping the white pawn. Peter

TrueFiendish said...

1.Nd1 b1N 2.b7 Ne5 3.b8N looks cute, but it's probably a lot trickier than that.

Shaun Press said...

Go with the cute answer! The full analysis (courtesy if Chessvibes) runs
1. Nd1!
1. b7? b1=Q 2. b8=Q Qf5+ 3. Kg7 Qg5+ 4. Kh8 Qh4+ 5. Kg7 Nxf2 6. Qa7+ 6. Qe8+ Ka3 7. Qf8+ Ka2 6. Qa8+ Na5 7. Qe8+ Ka3 8. Qf8+ Ka2 9. Qf7+ Nb3 6... Na5 7. Qd7+ Ka3 8. Qd6+ Kb3 9. Qb6+ Ka4
1... b1=N! 2. b7!
2. Nb2+? Ka5 3. b7 Nc5 4. Nc4+ Ka6 5. b8=N+ Kb7
2... Nc5 3. b8=N!
3. Nb2+? Ka5 4. Nc4+ Ka6 5. Nd6 Kb6 6. Ke7 Kc7
3... Kb3 4. Ke7 Kc2 5. Nd7 Ne4 6. Nf6! Ngxf6 7. Nf2 Nd5+ 8. Ke6 Nec3 9. Ne4! Nf4+ 10. Kf5 Nce2 11. Ng3! 1/2-1/2