Friday, April 10, 2009

Blue or Red Pill? II


Capablanca - Teichmann,
Berlin 1913


White to play



Another straight choice to end the week.

White's a pawn up and is looking to win the game, but what is the best way to proceed? Moving the rook away surrenders control of the c-file yet exchanging leads to one of those notoriously drawish - even more so than rook endings - opposite coloured bishop endings.

Eeney meeney miney mo...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would exchange the rooks - looks like the white king can penetrate the dark squares on the queenside and potentially create a passed h-pawn.

Annoniemouse

Superchess said...

Yes,I agree - Rxc8! Black will have to sac his d-pawn to prevent the White King getting to d4 after which the threat of creating a passed h-pawn,a 2 pawn advantage and play on both sides of the board will win easily.

Jonathan B said...

You both have it - or at least you both agree with Capa. I'll have to make the next one tougher.

an ordinary chessplayer said...

If I recall correctly, you also wanted to avoid the piece trade in Blue/Red 1.

ejh said...

It's opposite colours, but one of the bishops is pretty bad.