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Black to Play

Pete Tamburro on

Published in Chess Puzzles

Richard Reti was famous for his endgame compositions. Here, over the board, he comes up with a plan worthy of a study against the great rook and pawn endgame grandmaster Akiba Rubinstein.


Solution:

Reti’s first move is quite ingenious: 1.Rb6 Ra8 [The first point is that the rook can’t be taken as after 1...Rxb6 2.cxb6 Kd7 3.e5 fxe5 4.dxe5 the Black king can’t stop both pawns and one will queen before his a-pawn does.]2.Rxf6 a4 3.Rf2 The second point is that the rook gets back to stop the a-pawn, but you might ask, “Don’t we know that a king can stop 3 passed pawns?” Yes, but…3… a3 4.Ra2 Kd7 5.d5 g5 6.Kf3 Ra4 7.Ke3 h5 [The third point is that the rook can come back if Black tried to keep the king out with 7...h6 8.e5 Kd8 9.e6 Ke7 10.Rf2 a2 11.Rf7+ Ke8 12.d6 a1Q 13.d7+ Kd8 14.Rf8+ Kc7 15.d8Q+ Kc6 16.Qd6+ Kb5 17.Rb8+ Kc4 18.Qd3+ Kxc5 19.Rb5+ Kc6 20.Qd7#]8.h4 gxh4 9.gxh4 Ke7 10.Kf4 Kd7 11.Kf5 The fourth point is that the king makes his entrance, and the win is easy.

 


Send questions and comments to PTamburro@aol.com.

 

 

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