Test your chess: Reitstein problem 165: further comments

One of my regular readers, Ben Aoufa, has made an excellent comment on yesterday's puzzle. I thought 1 g5! was simply drawing, but Ben correctly points out a great attempt by black. It is insufficient, and the game is still a draw, but in practice as Ben says, it would be scary for white.

Black to play: what is his best defence?

White has just played g5.

Solution

Ben suggests 1…Kf4! which is a great try. Firstly, moving the bishop somewhere is hopeless: 2…Kg5 and the active king and three central pawns will defeat white: white's king will be a bit like King Canute and despite what he and his bishop might think, the wave of pawns will come to shore.

So, Ben's line is forced. 2 g6 Kf5 3 g7 Ke4

4 g8(Q) d3+ 5 Kf1[] (imagine what your nerves would be like now as white) e2+ (5…Kf3?? 6 Qg4#) 6 Kg2[] (again, who could remain calm?)

As white, I would be thankful for the skewer which prevents the e pawn from promoting ( 6…e1(Q)?? 7 Qe8+ 1-0; the skewer motif repeats). [I should add that 6..e1(N)+ is insufficient, but only because after 7 Kf1 black has two LPDOs, and as we all know, loose pieces drop off: 7…Ba5 8 Qa8+ forks the king and bishop! as does 7…Nf3 8 Qa6+]

So, 6…Ke3 7 Qe6+ and 'is there a perpetual?’

Fortunately, there is. Black's king has three tries: 7…Kd4?? which is hopeless after 8 Qb6+ and after n further checks, the advanced pawns will drop off; 7..Kf4?? is similarly hopeless, white takes the f6 pawn and then the bishop (8 Qf6+ Ke4 (8…Ke3 9 Qb6+) 9 Qb6! and if 9…e1(Q) then 10 Qe6+ skewers). So 7…Kd2[] is forced, 8 Qa2+ Ke3 and it is a draw.

In the above 'final' position, I think I would play 9 Qe6+ 'without thought' and when black accepted the draw offer, I hope that we would be both relieved and friends having had a good tussle. However, when I loaded the game into Stockfish, in order to produce the screenshots for this blog, it suggests 9 Qa1!? which is sneaky.

It gives white the 'better of the draw' or 'draw honours' since black now has an only move to draw. 9…Kd2: which of course black would find, but black would first have the disappointment of seeing that 9…d2 loses to 10 Qc3+ picking off the pawns.

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