White to move and win.

This problem is a bit of a twist on the usual tactics problems, since here it's finding the idea and not the exact variation that's the important part. The moves aren't that relevant - black is toast once white discovers the idea. There is only one move/idea for white that wins. So I'm looking for the move and idea moreso than some specific variation here.

This game was a gruenfeld where I miscalculated in the middle game and ended up sacrificing a piece to open up his king and get some good winning chances. My opponent's last move was h6 protecting his g pawn. An obvious enough move, but also a blunder.

Yip!



I think this position is neat since it looks like white's attack has more or less petered out at a glance, but black is actually toast.

I have to admit I was a little disappointed that this tactic wasn't "thematic" Still very pretty.

When you say black is toast do you mean he is mated quickly or loses large amounts of material? All I can see is:



but I can't see any line from here which is winning for white... in fact some of them lead to pretty dodgy positions with rook and bishop against bishop and 4 pawns where white has no winning chances. Can you give a hint for us beginners?

There's yet another crushing but nonobvious move in that exact position. Which is one reason I did not want to focus too much on the exact variations. The attack itself, against best defense, has plenty of moves that could be "Blitz tactics #x" themselves! But another issue is also that best defense is also quite difficult to find. We're taking as a given, but it's a very difficult move. Black opens up tons of lines to his king, while simultaneously giving white nearly two whole tempo on his attack (as opposed to if he had play h5/Qg6)! My opponent who was a strong player himself immediately went wrong and played the much more logical and went down very fast.

Almost! but it's the right idea and that's the important thing in this position!

Can you give a clue, I can't see anything better than



but this appears to lead to a draw after



maybe my end-game technique is bad but I just don't see how to win this.

I don't really see the point in this. I'm sorry if your software disagrees with me. White has the pleasant choice of either rook+queen vs rook+bishop or rook+bishop vs bishop or a variety of other pleasant endings. And I think white has more than enough to win in all of those, particularly the rook+bishop vs bishop. Black may have some chances of setting up some barricade and possibly squeezing out a draw if he continues to play computer-perfect moves for the next 30 moves - but yeah, that's not going to happen.

And it's worth mentioning this is yet another reason the idea is more important than anything else. Even with computer perfect defense - the position goes from wow: white's attack is dead and he's down a piece, to can black possibly manage to set up a blockade and hold onto a draw down a whole rook in an endgame.

Hmm, I don't get the antagonistic response. I can't see how white could make progress in the R+B vs B ending even if black made pretty much random bishop or king moves, not 'computer perfect' moves. Please could you explain how a strong white player would make progress here?

How does white get a rook+queen vs rook+bishop ending here? I'm obviously missing some tactic before the ending that you think is winning for white... I assume after Rf8 you are going to play Rf5, Rxf7; Qxf7+ Qxf7; Rxf7+ Kb6. This is the position that I think is drawn since white always has to leave a piece covering g1 and it's not clear (to me anyway) what his method of making progress is. Obviously if he ever decides to play Rxg2 for some reason the position is immediately drawn since his pawn has the wrong color queening square.

Perhaps there is something better than Rf5? Re7+ Kb6 leads to either the same position in some lines. If you play Rxf7 instead of Qxf7 then I will try something like Qc8 and try to get my queen to h3... at which point I suppose white would have to take a perpetual check, or sac something on g2 but then he has no material advantage.

So I'm not seeing anything better than the R+B vs B ending... I suppose my abysmal play in endings leads me to misevaluate this one I just dont see what white's 'idea' is.

Cool, so you're not using a computer?

But somehow you don't see Qg6, but are able to instantly come back with the incredible and much harder to find defense of Kc7/Rf8, not only leaving your queen en prise, but also going ahead and putting your rook en prise too.

And now you do not see how to force the R+Q vs R+B ending?? This is a much easier problem to solve than either Qg6 or Kc7/Rf8. I'll give a big hint. It's not Rybka's #1 move.

When did I say I wasn't using a computer? If the position is white to play and win, then it should be white to play and win, not white to play and win if black makes bad moves. I mean I'm rated 1800... for sure I couldn't defend it against you, but that doesn't affect whether white is won or not. I don't think the line ending in R+B+a-pawn vs B+4 pawns needs computer perfect moves. Any move that defends black's g2 pawn and doesn't accidentally wander into a mating net ought to suffice?

Thanks for the hint on achieving a different end-game, I still don't see it but will wait for a stronger player than me to point it out if computers aren't allowed in this forum. I assume it's not one of the alternative lines I suggested in my previous post.

*sigh* Dude, this is an irrelevant tangent. One idea after a few minutes of playing around with the position, and stop editing your posts dramatically changing their content. It's making this 'discussion' confusing.

One random way to play against the 'move back and fourth defense'

28... gxh4 29. Re1 h3 30. Qh5+ Ke6 31. Rxe5+ Kd6 32. Qg6 hxg2+
33. Kg1 Kc7 34. f7 Rf8 35. Rf5 Rxf7 36. Qxf7+ Qxf7 37. Rxf7+ Kb6 38. Bf8 c4 39.
Bb4 h5 40. Rf5 Be4 41. Rxh5 Bc6 42. Rh8 Bd5 43. Rc8 Bc6 44. a3

and white is zugzwanged with pawns starting to fall. Another is to cover the kingside pawn with your dark bishop then go start harassing black with your king+rook. And this is all from the ending that I think black should have the best defensive chances in!

If you're so centrically obsessed with what your computer would play, then go play against it instead of acting as a middle man for it and me, as I really could not care less what it thinks. See how often you win/lose/draw and start a thread with a game or something and see where we can improve your play. This thread isn't about beating rybka in a better ending.

Then don't post 'white to play and win' in the OP, put something like 'White to play and get a better endgame which might be won', or 'White to play and beat sub-2500 opposition in time pressure'.

Either

a) there is some way to force an ending where white still has a queen that rybka doesnt see after (so far) 30 billion nodes and depth=25

b) there is no way to force such an ending but the R+B vs B ending is won

c) there is no way to force such an ending and the R+B vs B ending is drawn.

I am interested in which is the case, if I'm totally alone in that then I apologise. In my opinion a chess puzzle that states 'white to win' should have a forcing variation where at the end of it even a beginning player can recognise that white has indeed won.

Dude, you are adding nothing at all here and are just blatantly trolling now. I even just wasted my time and gave you a lengthy variation/idea to start out with. You are not 1800. You are almost certainly a 1300 at best, but with a computer you're the **** huh? Go kibitz in a GM game and pretend the moves you're saying are your own ideas.

Edit:

Forget it, I'm not an antagonistic person
Let's just agree to disagree. It was a nice tactic whether or not it leads to a forced win

Why should I even bother responding to you? You haven't offered anything in this thread and you obviously have zero interest in improving since you open up a tactical problem and then decide it's a good idea to go let your computer try to solve it for you. You even tried to pretend you were the one coming up with the ideas which is even more pathetic.

h4 gxh4 Re1 h3 Qh5+ Ke6 Rxe5+ Kd6 Qg6 hxg2+ Kg1 Kc7 f7 Rf8 Rf5 Rxf7 Be5+

You can let your computer give you the rest.

Thanks

My computer says this is a draw as well, I guess it preferred the other line for winning chances and thus never bothered suggesting this one. It's weird though, you'd think with a queen on board the computer would be very good at finding some winning line.

Pyromantha, I think you're saying some quite silly things. I also think this is because you are quite weak, but mistakenly feel this is compensated for by your computer software. And there's nothing wrong with being a weak player - everybody starts at the bottom, but I don't think you are interested in improving or learning from these threads. And that tilts me quite hard for whatever reason, so I'm going to put you on ignore for my own sake.

Tough crowd

So you had a nice tactics problem but the computer found a possible cook (I haven't read all the analysis but this is my take). So what? This happens to the best endgame composers in the world. Why not just agree it's not totally clear, then edit the position and try again? This forum has got far too emo imo, every second poster seems to have a bruised ego.

Two reasons.

First being that this wasn't composed. It was from a real game.

Second is that it's not 'cooked'. The endgames are far far far far far from a straight forward draw for black. I had an easy enough time crushing fritz with white in them, but fritz does not play these sort of endings so well especially without being given a year per move.

And third being that it's all completely irrelevant. The initial idea/move is unarguably the one and only way to play and it clearly leads to a huge advantage for white.