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Not Everything that Looks a Draw is Drawn...Endgame Skills Test.

Submitted by WIM energia on Thu, 11/04/2010 at 10:30pm.Chess.com

I know how everyone is excited about opposite colored bishops’ endgames. These endgames do not feature lengthy calculations like pawn endgames do. They are not as complex and unpredictable as queen endgames are. Usually, the opposite colored bishop endgames are reached when one side is trying to escape from a worse or losing multiple piece endgame. Rarely, they are achieved by the attacking side's initiative. The endgames are simple to play if you have a good guidance. Here are some rules relevant for today’s example that are summarized from Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual, which is by no means my favorite endgame book. I summarized some in the previous article, please refer to it if you are interested.
1. The main theme of opposite-colored bishop endings is to create a fortress. In the following example white cannot prevent black from building a fortress while being down in material.
2. “The one-diagonal principle”. It is an ideal situation if a bishop can defend its own pawn and simultaneously stop the opponent’s pawn on the same diagonal because otherwise it will not be able to accomplish the mission eventually (if the two tasks are on two different diagonals).
3. When the passed pawns are separated the strong side’s strategy is to advance the king towards the pawn which is guided by the bishop. In our case black has the pawn on a7, which prevents the king from advancing.
Now, that we are equipped with extra knowledge let us proceed and look at today’s position. White has an extra pawn and a far advanced passed c-pawn. Black is on the defensive but as long as white does not create an outside passed pawn he should be fine. White has an extra pawn on the kingside, he should try to realize it. Then either the black king or the bishop will be deflected from the c-pawn in order to stop the passed kingside pawn. In this scenario white can try to break through with the king or attack the a7-pawn with the bishop and after getting the pawn, maneuver the king to the c-pawn, according to Rule 3. So, this is the first game.

Game1 vs. ?

2010 | 1/2-1/2

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1... h4 2. Kd4 ( 2. g3 hxg3 3. hxg3 Kd7 4. g4 Ke7 ) 2... Kd7 3. g3 hxg3 4. hxg3 Ke6 5. g4 Ba6 6. Ke3 Bc8 7. Kf2 Kd6 8. Kg3 Kd5 9. Kh4 Ke4 10. Kg5 Bd7 11. Bd2 ( 11. Kxg6 Bxg4 12. Kg5 Bc8 13. Bd2 Bf5 14. Kf6 a5 15. Bc1 a4 16. Kg5 Bc8 ) 11... Bc8 12. Kf6 Bxg4 13. Ke7 ( 13. Kxg6 ) 13... a5 14. Bxa5 ( 14. Kd8? a4 15. c8=Q Bxc8 16. Kxc8 a3 17. Kd7 a2 18. Bc3 Kxf4 ) 14... Kxf4 15. Kd8 Bf5 16. c8=Q Bxc8 17. Kxc8 g5 18. Bd2+ Kf5 19. Bxg5

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The important ideas extracted from the previous game are:
- Black must play h4 in order to trade one of the kingside pawns.
- White can march the king to h4 to help the creation of the passed pawn. Black's bishop on c8 is perfectly placed. It works according to Rule 2: stopping the c7 pawn and preventing the f4 pawn from becoming a passed pawn.
- Black can use the a-pawn as a deflection.
The second game feature more exciting events. White found an ingenious way of creating a passed pawn. Black didn’t find the best defensive resources and allowed the creation of the passed f-pawn, that was already at f5. This made the defense extremely tough. Here is the game.

Game2 vs. ?

2010 | 1-0

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1... h4 2. g4 hxg3 3. hxg3 Kd7 ( 3... Bc8 4. Kc6 Ke7 5. Bd2 Kf6 6. Be3 ) 4. g4 Ke7 5. Bc3 Kd7 6. Be5 Ke6? ( 6... Be4 7. Kd4 Bc2 8. f5 gxf5 9. g5 a5 10. g6 ( 10. Kc5 a4 11. Kb6 Kc8 ) 10... a4 11. g7 Bb3 12. Kc5 Bg8 13. Kb4 Bb3 14. Ka5 Kc8 ) 7. Bd6 Kd7 ( 7... Bc8 8. Kc6 Bd7+ 9. Kc5 Bc8 10. Be5 Bb7 ) 8. f5 gxf5 ( 8... g5 ) 9. gxf5 Bc8 10. f6 Ke6 11. Be5 Bb7 12. Bd4 Bc8 13. Kc6 Ba6 14. Bc3 Bc8 15. Kc5 Bb7 16. Be5 Bc8 17. Kd4 Bb7 18. Ke3 Bc8 19. Kf4 Bd7 ( 19... Bb7 20. Kg5 Kf7 ) 20. Kg5 Kf7 21. Bc3 Bc8 22. Bd4 a6 ( 22... a5 23. Kf4 Ke6 24. Ke3 Kd7 25. Kd3 ) 23. Kf4 Ke6 24. Ke4 Bb7+ 25. Kd3 Kd7 26. Kc4 Ke8 27. Kc5 Kd7 28. Kb6 Bc8 29. Ka7 a5 30. Ka8 Ke6 31. Kb8 Bd7 32. c8=Q Bxc8 33. Kxc8 Kf7 34. Kd7

Copy/paste the code below into your webpage or blog html to display this game:

<iframe border="0" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" width="574" height="519" src="http://www.chess.com/emboard.html?id=545975"></iframe>

HELPRESTARTSOLUTION				P|<<<<>>>>|
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The following details were uncovered:
- Black's king must stay around the c7-pawn when the bishop moves to c8 because otherwise white plays Kc6 and attacks the a7-pawn.
- Black must prevent white from getting the f5 passed pawn for free. One way of doing it is to put the king on d7 to stop the c7 pawn and the bishop on the b1-h7 diagonal to control the f5-square.
So, what can we say about this endgame? Surely, we uncovered many ideas but what is the objective evaluation? I would think that it is closer to a draw than to a win. The defense is by no means simple, black has to pay careful attention for all the maneuvers that white can bring out of their hat. Let us look at the real game and the analysis provided by the commentator. The annotations in the parentheses are mine.

Kaminker, H. vs. Yiang, Chuan

Mexico 30e/30 | 1980 | 1/2-1/2

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1... h4! 2. Kd4 ( 2. Be1 Kd7 3. Bxh4 Bxg2 ) 2... Kd7 3. g4 hxg3 4. hxg3 Kd6 5. Ke3 ( 5. g4 Bc8 6. f5 gxf5 7. g5 Be6 ) 5... Bc8 6. Kf3 Kd5 7. g4 Bd7 8. Kg3 Ke4 9. Bd2 Kd5 10. Kh4 Kd6 11. Ba5 Kd5 12. Bc3 Bc8 13. Kg5 Ke4 14. Bb4 Bd7 15. Bd2 Bc8 16. Kh4 Kd5 17. f5 gxf5 18. g5! Ke6 19. Kh5 Kf7 20. Kh6 Kg8 21. Kg6 a5! 22. Bxa5 f4 23. Bc3 f3 24. Bd4 Bd7 25. Kf6 Bc8 26. Ke7 Bb7! ( 26... Kh7?? 27. Kf7 ) 27. Kd8 Kf7 28. c8=Q Bxc8 29. Kxc8 Kg6 30. Be3 f2

Copy/paste the code below into your webpage or blog html to display this game:

<iframe border="0" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" width="574" height="519" src="http://www.chess.com/emboard.html?id=545976"></iframe>

HELPRESTARTSOLUTION				P|<<<<>>>>|
FLIP	SHARE	ANALYZE	PGN

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For the next week, here is a set of positions to solve. Take some time for example an hour for the four exercises. You don’t know in advance which one is easy and will take you 2 minutes to solve and which one is hard and will take you half an hour. This situation is similar to in a game: some of the decisions are easy to make, while the others take significant effort. The goal of this set of exercises is to review the learnt material and cover the topics that we haven’t looked at yet. Enjoy it!

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FEN/PGN

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Black to move

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