Nakamura isn't actually employed by the St. Louis club, he just said it was a major factor in his deciding to base himself out of St. Louis:

http://saintlouischessclub.org/conte...te-saint-louis

Ben Finegold is directly employed by the club and does a number of awesome things there.

Oh, I see. Sorry about the bad info.

Is this a win for white, or is there anyway black draw it? I traded into to it as black, and as soon as I did it I felt like I was losing. King and multiple pawn endgames are probably my worse chess skill, and I had no idea how to play it. EDIT: I'm not really sure why I traded into it in the first place, but after I did I looked at things and itseems like his king would dominate with how much closer to the middle it is.

Hmm. At first I thought this is easy for White because the a-pawn falls. However, Black can counterattack the kingside pawns and is equally fast, e.g. Kc3 Kf8 / Kb4 Ke7 / Ka5 Ke6 / Ka6 Kf5 / Kxa7 Kxg5 / a4 Kxh5 / a5 g5 / a6 g4 / Kb6(b7) g3 / a7 g2 / a8Q g1Q and I believe the queen endgame is good for Black.

If this plan fails I don't see how White can win this. He can bring his king to the centre and thus ensure the draw but I don't see how he wins. He can't create a passed pawn on the queenside, and his kingside pawns are as weak as is the Black a-pawn, so Black can always counterattack there if White tries to move his king to the queenside (see the line above for example).

So my guess is this is drawn. I did not use an engine so maybe I am wrong.

it's complicated, but I expect you aren't worse.

imagine instead of having 3 pawns against 2 on the kingside, you just had one pawn on h7 and he had none. Then you could bring your king to the queenside while his king is tied down to chasing the h-pawn, and win.

well, it turns out you can create a passed pawn immediately with ...h6 or ...g6 (temporarily sac a pawn if necessary). I'm not sure which is better or the evaluation of either, but they should give you some chances to win and an excellent chance to draw.

It's illusory that White's king is "more centralised" here: he is still a long long way from anywhere he could attack your pawns or defend his own (e.g. a6 or f5).

you will hear "pawn endings are all about calculation", but sometimes a lazier approach is also OK!

Back-handed slap to the US Championship in bold.

He doesn't have to play in the US Ch., but it would make the event a lot more fun to follow of course.

He really has nothing much to gain by playing in the US Ch. If he wins, so what.. he's world #7, he is supposed to win. If he somehow loses, then it's a HUGE deal, and I imagine it would be very annoying from a psychological standpoint. So I do understand and respect his decision not to play.

It is kind of peculiar though to MOVE to St. Louis, support St. Louis/American chess, and then NOT play in the US Ch. :: shrug ::

Just FTR, I'm scoring 50% lifetime against the US Championship Field.

(I'm going to get *so* much ego mileage out of that game. It's like a hybrid car).

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=41053



Pretty sure this was rightly agreed to a draw?

Maybe Be8 and Bh5 comes to something for white but not sure.

Actually I doubt it does because there's no way for the two pawns to advance quickly enough to move out of the way and protect d1 again that I can see.

White could and should play on at least a little, it's maybe a draw but he can still make Black show how he defends. Something like Kf3-Be4-Bc2-Ke4 already threatens Kd5 (Bxf4 Kc6) and there is a distant possibility of getting to play Kb5 Ba5 b4 some day

In your game 3.. Nc6 is inaccurate.

It's atypical to put your Knight in front of your c-pawn against queen pawn openings.

Usually Black prefers to either play c7-c5 first then Nc6, or Nb-d7 and maintain the flexibility of either playing c7-c5 and hitting at the center or supporting his own center with c7-c6.

The ending is a complete draw.

i think that's actually a pretty real possibility. First reorganize as described by Bill, then move your K to c6 forcing him to defend the pawn with Ba5 (i think his K has to stay close to the K-side). Black cannot afford to give up b6 because then white's a-pawn is to strong. Then Kb5 and b4 cxb4 c5 pretty much wins the B by force, you just have to make sure that your B is on the right diagonal to stop the black pawns. Not really sure if that's possible though.

It's a draw, but black has to prove it, like smilingbill said. 1. Kf3 Bc3 (or b4 or a5) 2. Be4 Be1 3. Bc2 Bh4 4. Ke4 Ke6 5. f5+ Kd6 as a sample line of what black needs to achieve.

I'm not sure how many opponents below master strength would find that bishop round trip to defend the pawn securely from d8 (there might of course be other defences). Certainly didn't occur to me and a great example of how to think in these endgames: First think about target positions and then try to find a way to reach them.

Last night I played against a guy for the second time in the past month. Every time he makes a good move he says "Boy you are reaaaally in a pickle." "You sure are in a pickle." What is he, 70? Most tilting thing in the world.

Just beat his ass and it will stop tilting you

More "was this drawn" fun:



I was 99% sure this was. I was assuming black had all the winning chances and white was happy to have the position pretty much frozen with no chance to make progress for either side.

Crafty agrees it's drawn, but when I tried to give it to Fritz it said white could force a win. I've never quite figured out how to make sure the analysis is set up right, so I don't know if that's true or not.

Hmm. How does Fritz force the win for White?

Black has two ways to "force" the draw, as I see it -- by playing Nxg4 when the White king is too far away (e.g., 1.Kf8 Ne3 2.Re4 Nxg4 =), or by playing f5 when White isn't in a position to exploit it tactically (e.g. 1.Ke8 f5 = whereas 1.Kf5 f5? 2. Ra6+ wins).

If I turn it around, as White I would try to win the pawn on f6, but it's hard to do that without losing the pawn on g4 if the White king is on the 7th rank -- e.g. as long as Black can meet Rxf6 by Ne3 (White cannot protect g4 with Rf4 because of the Black pawn on f5).

White has nothing with the king on the first few ranks, e.g., @f3 -- Black just moves the knight back and forth. (Maybe forcing a draw with an eventual f5 is also possible, but there's no pressure to do so.) Even if Black "blunders" and let's the White king to f5, Black can usually still draw, which is a little surprising to me.

Try taking the Black side of this against Fritz and just playing some lines. If you lose, then just deviate where you think you went wrong and continue. I'd guess that you don't need too many "takebacks" before you can hold the draw with Black.

If I had to guess, I'd say White is winning. On some cognac and red wine now so won't try to analyse in detail but play rook to sixth, king to e7-f8 , then ra7-rg7+, kf7. (and maybe get to return the exchange on f6) I think I might have once won a position like that in a corr game

Houdini seems to think it can draw it, but no surprise there

Of course it's probably right... 0.19 evaluation at depth 28

Edit: I tried it's two main lines up to the first capture (to get it down to 6 pieces) and then stuck it in the endgame tablebase and both of those positions were drawn.

a few days ago, a poker player im'ed me and said how about a nice game of chess?. And like that I'm addicted again

Heh. Being on here has put me into contact with poker again, and I'm not even slightly tempted. But the degen stories everywhere are awesome to read.