The Chess Mind

Here's the position, again:


Wotawa 1963; White to move and draw

Were you able to solve it? White cannot allow Black to queen, so he must take the pawn. But which way? To figure that out, we must first figure out what Black is up to. After all, Black is not exactly promoting anything on the kingside, while a 4-0 queenside majority is normally enough to force a queen (and then some). We then notice that White's king is rather constrained, and a move like ...f6+ or ...h6+ puts it on the edge of the board, awaiting a cruel fate.

The problem with ...f6+ is that after Kh5, it will be impossible to mate with ...g6. That's because White will have Kh6, and Black can't put his king on g7 while his pawn remains there. So now we can work out the threat: Black will play ...h6+, scoot his king to h7, and play ...g6#. Note: even a White queen, with the move after ...Kh7, will generally be powerless against this idea. In fact, there's only one promotion square for a new queen that will allow a white queen to cope with this possibility.

If you hadn't worked it out before the hints, those will probably get you most if not all of the way there. But if not, that's okay too. You can find the solution here.

Well, it's at least relatively easy. (But not trivially easy. Black has a threat!)


Wotawa 1963; White to move and draw.

The solution will be given tomorrow.

Rather than allowing the previous post to have comments, it seemed a better idea to reserve this post for that purpose. So have a look there to see the problem, and then offer your solutions here.

Visiting my friend Alex Herrera's correspondence chess website, I came across this position:


(His diagram and arrow.)

It's from the game Walters-Herrera, USCCC18, and of it Alex writes "Draw". Does this mean that the position is a draw (objectively) or that it wound up drawn, or both? Was 1.Kxf6 played, or should it be played, or is it White's threat but with Black to move? I have answers to some but not all of these questions, but for the sake of simplicity, let's set things up this way:

Suppose it's White to move. What should he do, and what's the right result? Work it out, but save your answers for a second post, so that those who come across this post later don't have the solution spoiled for them. I'll offer my thoughts later - if necessary. (If my talented and industrious readers work it out themselves, all that will be left for me is to say yea and amen.)

Here's the problem, again:


Wotawa 1937, White to move and win:

As noted in the earlier post, White has loads of extra material, but Black's passers are very dangerous. And the other relevant issue is the precarious location of Black's king. At the end of the day, that's what matters; as an old chess friend liked to say, what counts is that we get the guy with the hat on his head. (Of course, the bishop has one too, but never mind!) When you think you've got it figured out, or are tired of trying, click here.