Hi everyone!

My father-in-law yesterday showed me a really great chess puzzle with which you can win your daily amount of beer if you challange your friends to bet on this puzzle. The puzzle, in fact, is an endgame study, and is very simple. However, it contains many hidden subtleties that your friends will hopefully fall for. NOTE: Please don't crtitcise the puzzle until you've read the whole post. You'll later see why I wrote this ;) Thanks.

Here it is white to move. Ask your friend whether they want to be black or white. Bet them a bottle of beer thaqt if you are white, you'll win, but if you're black, you save this to a draw. If your friend knows chess a little, they'll see that black can't win due to his king being very far away, so they'll probably choose white. Your task is to draw with black. Your moves should be:

 

So you should have one beer now. Ask your friend to set the position up again, but this time (now that he knows the defence) you'll win with white. Bet on this another beer. You should play:

Thus, you have two beers. Now you bet again an other beer, that, despite this idea, you can still draw with black. The game goes:

Now that you have 3 beers, ask your friend to try it just one more time, you'll take white, and despite the stalemate defence, you can win with white. Let's see:

And, as I promised, you got your 4 beer. I hope you enjoyed this study. Drink with care ;) see you.

Surely I enjoyed this study, thanks alot!

The story behind this (quite famous) endgame can be found here:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~timkr/chess/saavedra.htm

I was going over the "Saavedra" ending yesterday.  Too bad I did not see you at the bar!  Well, maybe not, I think I forgot everything I studied.

I've recently read an article somewhere, actually the best defence (and thus mainline) would be to let white queen his pawn immediately.

K+Q vs K+R is not a trivial ending.

But it would be less instructional then.

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Correct about QxR endings not being trivial.   I've seen chess masters only draw them with the Queen side.

To some ways of reasoning (such as most computer engines), the "best" defense is the one that lets the losing side last the most moves.  To many human players, the best defense would be the one that maximizes their chance of winning, drawing, or allowing the opponent the most opportunities to make a mistake, even if that means a quicker defeat.