Wednesday, December 14, 2011
A Basic Drawing Technique in King, Rook and Rook's Pawn v. King and Rook
Consider the following two positions which were inspired by Robert Moskwa's game at the Illinois Class with World Under 8 Champion Awonder Liang. White has just checked the Black king with his rook and Black has the choice of moving away from the White king and pawn with 1...Kd7 or towards them with 1...Kb6. The only difference is that the White rook is on c4 in the first and c3 in the second. Both positions are theoretical draws if Black makes the correct choice. See if you can figure out what the right move is in each case before you look at the analysis on my blog.
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3 comments:
Very nice examples! I wonder how the players got to this position, as there are a lot of easier draws for the defender in this ending.
Unfortunately, I don't have the score. It was the age old problem of knowing what's a draw but not how to draw. This, as well as my own blunder against Ulrich, has inspired me to sit down and take another run at getting the basic positions straight in my head.
In the first position (white rook on c4) 1...Kb6 works because after 2. Kb8 Rxa7 3. Rb4+ black has the resource 3...Kc5 (or 3...Ka5). 1...Kd7 doesn't work because the white rook can help its monarch escape black's checks: 2. Kb7 Rb1+ 3. Ka6 Ra1+ 4. Kb6 Rb1+ 5. Ka5 Ra1+ 6. Ra4+-.
In the second position, 1...Kb6 doesn't work because the white rook is not under attack after 3...Kc5, and 3...Ka6 fails to the skewer 4. Ra3+. However, 1...Kd7 now works because the white rook cannot help its king escape the checks.
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