Nice N and pawn ending

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2nd June 2009, 09:58pm
#1
by JG27Pyth
NYC United States
Member Since: Mar 2008
Member Points: 1488

Found this in a game I was looking over...I thought it was pretty cool.

It's not a puzzle because there are alternate moves.I modified the position slightly. Do take a moment to think about what you'd play before clicking thru.

2nd June 2009, 10:13pm
#2
by DaPharaoh
Gaithersburg, MD United States
Member Since: Oct 2007
Member Points: 1364

I saw the mate almost immediately :) the only difference is that I chose 2.Nb5

That is a nice problem though, I think the hard part is actually getting into this kind of position knowing that it is won rather than solving it

which game did you see this played in?

2nd June 2009, 10:19pm
#3
by prashanth21
hyderabad India
Member Since: Oct 2007
Member Points: 1429

Any how nice end game.

3rd June 2009, 02:27am
#4
by LearnChess
United States
Member Since: Jul 2008
Member Points: 332

Nice problem.

3rd June 2009, 03:53am
#5
by JG27Pyth
NYC United States
Member Since: Mar 2008
Member Points: 1488
DaPharaoh wrote:

I saw the mate almost immediately :) the only difference is that I chose 2.Nb5

That is a nice problem though, I think the hard part is actually getting into this kind of position knowing that it is won rather than solving it

which game did you see this played in?


I think this is pretty easy if one knows the mate as you did but a good bit harder if one doesn't know well the K + N + rook pawn mate beforehand, as I didn't!  The rook pawn is so often a special-case disadvantage, but here it's got a benefit. Just goes to show, you can't know to many mating patterns.

The game was Har-Zvi v Savchenko 2007. The Black pawn, d3, was on e6 (I moved it just to give White a little something extra to think about. Maybe he needs to try to stop the d pawn from promoting?

18th July 2009, 05:34pm
#6
by Eric_C
Dallas United States
Member Since: Jun 2009
Member Points: 245

I don't see how 1 Nb5 fails?

18th July 2009, 07:00pm
#7
by JG27Pyth
NYC United States
Member Since: Mar 2008
Member Points: 1488
Eric_C wrote:

I don't see how 1 Nb5 fails?


It doesn't fail but it isn't best, it doesn't mate cleanly as other lines that deflect the Black N to g8 do. (I should probably move that black pawn to d2 and then maybe 1.Nb5 does actually fail.) After 1.Nb5 Nd5+ black will worm out of the immediate mating net. Black can't stop the a-pawn from Queening however and  Black is still quite completely lost. I didn't mean to present this as a puzzle with a forcing solution, It isn't one. I was just intrigued with how nicely N+P+K coordinate to mate a cornered king.

 

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