Endgame Study Time: An Easy One from Wotawa - The Solution
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.
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.
Related Posts (on one page):
- More Wotawa
- Endgame Study Time: An Easy One from Wotawa - The Solution
- Endgame Study Time: An Easy One from Wotawa
Posted by Dennis Monokroussos on
Tuesday June 30, 2009 at 2:59am
But IMHO this line should have been in the analysis as well. It took me a while to figure this one out...
One typographical correction: in your main line you omitted a White move: it should read 19.Ke6 Kxh5 20.Kf5=.
Finally, a point of possible disagreement: I don't think it's "lucky" for the composer that 9...f4 doesn't work, for at least two reasons. First, I'm sure that he, or a contest judge, or some member of his original audience would have worked those details out long ago. Also, with White's big space advantage, well-placed king and Black's king out in the boonies, it would at least as surprising were Black to have a win there. But you probably meant nothing more than that the composer didn't have the bad luck of having 9...f4 refute his work, and that seems fair enough.
Thanks again for the help!
http://www.gadycosteff.com/eg/eg20.pdf#page=7
There, it is mentioned that he wrote a book containing a collection of his best studies, titled "Auf Spurensuche mit Schachfiguren" (On the Trail with the Chessmen).
See http://www.schachversand.de/e/detail/buecher/753.html