Most elegant. The interesting alternative is placing the rooks on a1 and b2. The pluses and minuses are in the details. There is for instance an extra rook mate on the a-file which is dualed in the diagram version. I guess the author pondered a while about it.
Endgame Study - M. Matous, 2000
Sort:
May 17, 2021
0
#3
Arisktotle wrote:
Most elegant. The interesting alternative is placing the rooks on a1 and b2.
The author may have prefered the symetry with the black pieces at the other side of the board, I would have for sure.
Geometry counts but here is a more obvious downside to my suggestion. In the diagram the king travels to d7 before returning home while in the alternative it returns from e7 - unless it chooses to be mated on the a-file. So the plus of the extra mate is in the same package as the minus of the shorter king walk in the main line. The author went for maximizing the king walk over the decorative but less thematic extra staircase mate.
Drag the pieces to solve!