Endgame Puzzle: July 3, 2009

"If you like the puzzles . . . track me :-)."

Hi folks, today's puzzle will cover the importance of timing.  In this position, white seems to be lost.  However, with a little finess and forcing black's king on a key square, white wins by force.  For more in depth coverage, track me from my homepage and check out the "Engames for Dummies Like Me" series on my page's content.

Can you name this great endgame player?

Hope you enjoy!

Level:  Intermediate

Judit Polgar, she was the strongest female chess player. good puzzle

You are correct my friend!

She is also one of the strongest players period!

Vary nice

that I did this puzzle before in a endgame training and it was easy,because i am a CM

Good lesson!!

Thanks!

Hi! It was very useful & enjoyable puzzel which I have never seen before.

nice!!!!

doesn't 1.Kc7 win too ?

that was nice

It's almost impossible to make intermediate puzzles without making an error here and there without using computers, even for master level players.

While it does demonstrate a nice point (the seemingly sound move Kb7 that serves to protect the a pawn is only a draw), it is a hugely ambigous puzzle, 4 different initial moves win, and Kd7 is the fastest (17 moves).

Point: Posting an imperfect puzzle is one thing, but making claims about a puzzle without having verified those really makes you look silly. It is so easy to check using a computer program, why risk the embarrassment?

eBusiness, the puzzle is very interesting and enjoyable : it doesn't matter if there are many solutions, or even if there is a mistake somewhere in the initial analysis

I'm just responding to a downright wrong statement, it is indeed a nice position for study, but with the ambiguity it doesn't fit into the linear Chess.com puzzle structure.

I'm calm. You definition of "losing" is a bit unorthodox. And my conclusion is that the Kd7 initial move is the quickest. If you want to argue with that, take it up with a tablebase.

excellent

Yes excellent. A beneficial study! Thanks.

Cool.

ADK

does she still play?