Monday, February 04, 2008

Pawn ending


White to play.


(from Gerald Abrahams, Technique in Chess.)

6 comments:

Tom Chivers said...

My rather hungover guess is 1.Kf2 Kh2 2.Kf3 Kh3 and then just queen the c pawn - since now it queens with check.

ejh said...

You reckon?

Tom Chivers said...

Not any more...

Anonymous said...

1.Kf2 Kh2 2.Kf3 Kh3 3.Kf4 Kh4
4.c4 g5+ 5. Ke3! g4 6.c5 g3 7. c6 g2 8. Kf2

or 5. - Kh3 and as Tom says White promotes with check and gets Q vs g2 pawn, which is a win.

Is that it?

Carsten

ejh said...

That's pretty much it, yes. The trick is to march the grand old duke of York up the hill and then march him down again, but by a slightly different route...

Anonymous said...

Might need to add 1. Kf2 Kh2 2. Kf3 Kh3 3. Kf4 Kh4 4. c4 g5+ 5. Ke3 Kg4 6. Ke4! for completeness.

I'm wondering if

5. Ke4 doesn't win as well.

ie. 5... g4 6.c5 g3 7. Kf3 Kh3 8. c6 g2 9. c7 g1(Q) 10. c8 (Q)+ and 11. Qh8+ (mate or winning the Q).

1. Ke2 is also an alternative first move.

Richard