Saturday 23 June 2012

Instructive endgames

Imagination in chess 514
It is very hard to imagine a serious chess player who didn´t at least partly read fantastic book Imagination in chess by Pata Gaprindashvili. 
My next example is from that book (number 514). Basically, this book is more about combinations but there is some examples from my favourite part of chess game, endgame.
In this example it is black who tries to win this position.
White defence idea is to put bishop on diagonal h1-a8 and than take on f4 and g3 before black pawn on b4 promotes.
Right now, black needs help from his king.

Solution is very easy if you know basic motive.

1...Kd4 (but not 1...Kd5 2. Kxf4, g2 3. Bf3+ with a draw)
2. Bc2 !, Kc3
3. Be4 and it seems that white achieved his goal
3...b3
4. Kxf4  but now black has a winning move which is actually well known from Reuben Fine endgame book
4...Kd4!
White bishop can´t fight against two pawns without help of white king which is restricted to defence of bishop. One of black pawns promotes.

White on move
Dumpor A. (2355) - Stojanovic Do. (2350)

This position is from Bosnian league in chess, and white is on move.
If white knew about Fine example and a combination from Gaprindashvili´s book he could find a winning continuation here.
Dumpor played:
52. a8Q and after
52...Bxa8
53. Rxa8, Rf4 and he reached this drawish rook endgame.
He went to win it latter on, because black played really bad.
As, IM Vitomir Arapovic pointed after the game, IM Dumpor missed elementary winning continuation.
He could play:
52. Rc8+, Kxb5
53. Rxc4, Kxc4
54. h4
It is very important to notice that a black king is in quadrant of h-pawn but if black wants to catch this pawn than he needs to step on d5 which intercepts diagonal to a8 and white promotes.
Only defensive idea is to take a-pawn with a king and than is everything all right.
Position before 56. Ke3

54...Kc5
55. h5, Kb6
...and now (position on next diagram) we have a same motive as in previous example.
White needs to attack black bishop in order to promote one of his pawns.
56. Ke3
Black bishop is stretched to defend a8 and h7.
White wins easily. 



3 comments:

  1. good lesson :)

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  2. Anders Johansson23 June 2012 at 20:11

    Very nice and instructive examples!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Instructive endgame. It's interesting that strong player like Dumpor did not find the solution!

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