Nice endgame

  
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Nice endgame


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Ilmars Cirulis    (2006-12-30 00:29:27)
Nice endgame

ChessPosition (see diagram)
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
a b c d e f g h




Ilmars Cirulis    (2006-12-30 00:30:27)
White to move...

... and win


Thibault de Vassal    (2006-12-30 03:14:53)
Very interesting !

An instructive one, undoubtly !

Thinking about...


Daniel Khayman    (2007-01-01 17:32:24)
?

i don't think winning is possib;e for white with their dark-square bishop. white would need a light-square bishop to do so. please, impress me!


Ilmars Cirulis    (2007-01-01 19:25:04)
2 Daniel Khayman

With 'a' pawn white can't win.
So white must move their pawn to line 'b'. :)


Daniel Khayman    (2007-01-02 07:00:31)
:-)))

still, white can't force black's pawn advance because their king can always escape via a6-b7 and so guard the key square a8. i maintain winning isn't possible like this


Ilmars Cirulis    (2007-01-02 09:45:59)
Happy New Year!

Hi, Daniel!

Just stalemate black king. Or, if he escape too far from black pawns, eat both pawns.

Do you need more hints?


Daniel Khayman    (2007-01-02 12:41:01)
?

black's king has too many available squares, how can you stalemate it?


Ilmars Cirulis    (2007-01-07 02:34:08)
To Daniel Khayman

No more hints! :)


Kieran Child    (2007-01-07 11:29:57)
I've done it I think

Here are some of my ideas: Bishop on the a5-d8 diagonal to cut off the black king, white king gains opposition and pushes through, white bishop able to come back to e1 while king is on b6 so that Ka5 can be met with Kc5. A game I played managing this (I'm white, fritz 8 is black) 1. Bd4 Ka6 2. Kb2 Ka5 3. Kb3 Ka6 4. Bf6 Kb6 5. Bd8+ Kb7 6. Kc2 Kc6 7. Kd3 Kc5 8. Bh4 Kb6 9. Be1 Kb7 10. Kd4 Kc6 11. Be2 Kd6 12. Bd3 Kc6 13. Ke5 Kb7 14. Kd5 Kc7 15. Kc5 Kb7 16. Bf4 Kc8 17. Kb6 Kd8 18. Bd6 Kc8 19. Kc6 Kd8 20. Kb7 Kd7 21. Bxb4 and fritz resigned. It's a very long solution and none of black's moves are forced, so if anyone sees a different black move, I'll give you what I would have played against that, but I think this wins :)


Elmer Valderrama    (2007-01-13 12:44:55)
rybka 1.2f on a AMD 1700+

After 1.Bd4 Ka6 2.Kb2 Kb7 3.Kb3 Kc7 (or the line given by Kieran, first three moves: 1.Bd4 Ka6 2.Kb2 Ka5 3.Kb3 Ka6), Rybka 1.2f 32-bit running in a AMD XP 1700+, 512MB RAM (hashtable 128MB) solves it exactly (single-line analysis, depth=41 in 2 min 45 sec, +3.77 (at depth=59 in 5min it predicts mate in 33 with tablebases) (just for the record; don't want to spoil the fun)

(I suppose version 2.2 and a dual core could solve it from the starting position, anyone tried?)