More fun with endgames. Super-easy for many of the players here, but I found it fascinating.
White to play and draw:
can't white draw with 1. a8=Q Bxa8 2. Nxd3 Kg1 3. Ke1 h2 4. Nf2 Bf3 5. Nh3+? There has to be a refutation that could really turn this into a study because the zugzwang motives in this line look really interesting.
Guess i found it, 5. ...Kg2 6. Nf2 Bg4/h5! or 6. Nf4+ Kg3
Would someone mind helping me out with this position? I'm currently playing through Dreev's games (I pretty much copied his opening repertoire) and this one is from Dreev-Zherebukh in 2009. In the following position, white played 29. h4. Could someone explain to me the idea behind the move? To my patzer eye it looks like that move weakens the h-pawn. I thought maybe he's trying to prevent a g6-g5 advance by black, but I don't see why black would want to try and play that. Houdini likes the move (2nd best) but for the life of me I can't figure out what Dreev is planning. Any help at all would be appreciated.
1. It is very important to grab as much space as possible in the ending, if you can. Therefore, ideally, white would love to set up his pawns on g4 and h4 right now, severely limiting black's movement on the kingside.
2. If he starts with g4, black can just respond with g5 and the expansion on the kingside is stopped, because after f4 black can just hold his ground with something like Nh7 or even take on f4 and get rid of his doubled pawns.
3. Therefore, he starts with h4, preventing g5. Nh5 is not scary, so g4 is incoming next move, slowly building the pressure and limiting black's options.
YKW, thank you for the reply, that completely makes sense. I didn't think that if he led with g4, black would shut it down with g5. Very, very helpful.
This isn't an instructive position, but a beautiful game. This article is from chess.com and showcases the game Timman-Ernst from Wijk aan Zee's B group this year. This is the type of game I could only dream to play.
That looks like a dead draw to me, I don't see how white can make progress. Since black's king can't be dislodged from c8, the white king can't ever participate in the game. All black has to do is not lose the g5 pawn and white can't do anything.
Kyle the solution to that position you posted is beyond awesome. Filthy describes it perfectly. I love puzzles that are not overly complex but that are still absolutely gorgeous.