Weekly Endgame Study (176) – improved
4 July 2010, 23.58 CET | By Peter Doggers | Filed under: Weekly endgame study | Tags:
Every week we present you an endgame study – this week not selected by IM Yochanan Afek but by another, quite famous player from Israel. Last week, at the Kings’ Tournament in Bazna, Boris Gelfand showed an ending to Magnus Carlsen, and he was happy to show it to our readers too. Good luck solving! Update: improved version after Mr. Gelfand emailed us.
At first we gave the position below, which actually happened in the game, and in which there’s only one winning move. But in fact a slightly altered position makes a much nicer study, as Boris Gelfand noted in an email to us. First the ‘wrong’ study, which you might try to solve as well:
From the game Gelfand-Wang Yue
Russian Team Ch 2010
White to play and win
And now here’s the position Gelfand showed to Carlsen last week:
Inspired by Gelfand-Wang Yue
Russian Team Ch 2010
White to play and win
Try solving without checking the tablebase! Next week the solution.
Solution last week
H. van der Heijden
2003
Game viewer by ChessTempo
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Well, then, we have to ask — how long did it take Carlsen to solve it?
zugzwang
I noticed after enlarging the picture in the story that the rook was on g1…
Solution for puzzle 1 (I think – but Black may get away with a draw by repetition).
1.Rh2 Kh4 2.Kf4 Ng4 [3.fxg4 Stalemate] 3.Rh1 h2 4.fxg4 Kh3 5.g5 Kh4 6.Rxh2#
After 3.Rh1 black can do 3. … Nf2
The only reasonable move for White is Rh2 and Black can go back to Ng4 – Draw by three-fold repetition!! Dont know how to avoid that. Black can get away with a draw!!
Hrishi,
Nice try, but you’re missing something simple… Look again!
@Frits Fritschy
Is it
3. Rxh3 Kxh3
4. fxg4
Then move pawn protected by white King to promote to Q and win