Thank you for posting the game and analysis! I agree it's a fascinating and very challenging type of ending. Mikhail Botvinnik wrote a lengthy study of it in the 1940s; it can be found in Moravian Chess's "Botvinnik's Complete Games (1942-1956) and Selected Writings (Part Two)." Also the new edition of the rook endings volume of the Encyclopedia of Chess Endings has many examples, including three different games in which Vassily Smyslov had to defend the ending - and all three times he held the draw!
f- & h-pawn Rook Ending
Sort:
How about 63...Kg3. ?
chopwood wrote:
How about 63...Kg3. ?
I don't see what is changed after Rb3+
Now, Kxh4 is good
Ha, yep, after that continuation the tablebase says Black is winning. I think 63...Kg3 64.Kf1 is better, though.
You need to know the concept of king on short side rook on long side as explained in the rook videos of Daniel Rensch
after 64. Kf1, Ra1ch, 65. Ke2, Kxh4, what then for white?
66.Rf5 after that is drawn.
Spiffe, you may be right, but I can't agree that a rook and 2 pawns is a draw against a rook, even if they are unconnected. After 66. Rf5, Ra5 seems to secure everything. The king will come to g4, and the pawns advance, right?
In that scenario Jack, I would play 67.Kf3, after which the draw looks pretty obvious; I don't see any way for White to extricate his king from the h-file and hang on to the f-pawn at the same time.
MyFIDE is right, though; odd as it may seem, rook & bishop pawn + R can be a draw against just a R. Smyslov has some very nice endgames in which he held the weaker side of it, and Botvinnik famously made it a key point of preparation going into the matches with him.
The assessments I'm making aren't just based on the best of my knowledge, though -- most of the analysis in this post was made with the assistance of the tablebases at http://www.k4it.de/index.php?topic=egtb&lang=en. Those are indicative of perfect play in the endgame, and can be fascinating to play through -- after the game is over, of course!
I see- Please allow me one more try. In your game, after 66. Rg8, why not Ra5 immediately, threatening to trade rooks, therefore forcing the king off the g-file, or the rook off of same.
Thanks for the endgame. Well done.
That would have been more in keeping with the plan I ultimately pursued; as indicated in the comments, I abandoned a different plan based on 66...Kh3 and 67...h4 after realizing it wasn't going to come to anything. Play would continue as it did after 68...Ra5.
I've saved three draws on chess.com with this ending. The model game for the drawing side's play is Gligoric-Smyslov, 1947:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1125538
As Spiffe says, the lateral checks are key, and must be used before the pawns advance too far.
A game I recently completed was the first time I had the experience of playing a rook- and bishop-pawn rook ending. Despite the two-pawn material deficit, it can be a theoretical draw; doing so over the board is another matter though! Post-game analysis with the benefit of a tablebase was instructive, and rather humbling; my opponent and I traded the win and draw back and forth several times, often unwittingly. I post my findings here, and invite the community to comment:
I can't claim to have seen the way through the whole game, but was fortunate to come out on top. Quite illustrative of how difficult this endgame can be!