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White to Play

Pete Tamburro on

Published in Chess Puzzles

Welcome to the second week of chess summer school. When I was a young chess player, I loved to play gambits. As I progressed, my opponents got stronger, and I often found myself just a pawn down with no attack. I learned how not to lose! I knew every king and pawn ending I could find so I could prevent my opponent from using his pawn advantage. This week, we are going to look at positions where you will be in a tough position, but you can save yourself if you know how. Hopefully, this will start you on the road to learning how not to lose. We will start with—you guessed it!—your being a pawn down.


Solution:

You might initially think that moving your king over quickly toward the pawns will help, but it loses as you find that Black has lots of waiting moves to play and you have very few, and as a result your king gets pushed back: 1.Kb4 a6 2.Kc4 Ke5 3.Kc3 Kd5 4.Kb4 Kd4 5.Kb3 a5 6.Kb2 Kc4 7.Ka3 Kc3 8.Ka2 Kb4 9.Kb2 Kxa4 and it’s an easy win for Black. However, the way to draw is by offering up your pawn: 1.a5 Kd5 [1...b5 2.a6! Kd5 3.Kb4 Kc6 4.Ka5 Kc5 --stalemate! Now that's a trick to remember!; 1...bxa5 2.Kb2 Kd4 3.Ka1 and the a-pawn can’t be forced in to queen] 2.Kb4 Kc6 3.axb6 axb6 4.Kc4 [and you now should know how to defend this. As long as the opponent's king is not in front of the pawn, it's a draw:] 4...Kc7 5.Kb5 Kb7 6.Kb4 Kc6 7.Kc4 [Maintaining the opposition. It's helpful to remember that you want your opponent to check you with the pawn.] 7...b5+ 8.Kb4 Kb6 9.Kb3 Kc5 10.Kc3 b4+ 11.Kb3 Kb5 12.Kb2 Kc4 13.Kc2 b3+ 14.Kb2 [14.Kc1?? Kc3 and Black gets the opposition and wins.] 14...Kb4 15.Kb1 Kc3 16.Kc1 b2+ 17.Kb1 Kb3 [Stalemate.] All the little side variations are important as well, so make sure you study everything!

 


Send questions and comments to PTamburro@aol.com.

 

 

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