Half term holiday puzzle #chess

We flew out for a week's holiday to our villa in Kas, Turkey, yesterday. In my flight bag I had the following puzzle from Chess Today issue 4701. The puzzle had stumped me initially, and stumped me again on the plane, but I refused to give up and eventually was rewarded with the eureka! moment.

As my children would say, this puzzle is well good.

Solution

First try is to bring the king out and towards the pawn. 1 Kb7 Rb3+ 2 Kc6 Rc3+ 3 Kb5?? Rc8 -+. Black rook is in time to pick up the a7 pawn when the win is trivial.

Next try is to try to tuck the king away at a6. 1 Kb7 Rb3+ 2 Ka6 but alas black's pawn is too far advanced, and whilst white promotes first, the Queen is stuck on a8, no checks (other than Qb8+ when it will be captured), so white is mated.

Third try is to wander over to the h file, keeping on the 7th or 8th ranks: but black's rook can carry on checking and no good appears to have done….

Fourth and fifth and sixth tries are to do the first three tries again, seeing what I might have missed. Does the second try definitely lose? Yes….should I give up?….no….and then the moment of inspiration:

Wander the king to the h file, forcing black's rook to take the h3 pawn (realise that is why the h3 pawn exists, it being a study); wander all the way back to b7, tuck the king into a6 and, bingo!, when the white queen promotes it can now check on h8: the king's protecting umbrella, the Ph3, has gone.

This position is a Tablebase win. White puts his queen initially on a1 and then wins the rook by forcing it to a square where it is vulnerable to a checking fork: LPDO.

A very satisfying puzzle to have solved.

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