High elo endgame puzzle

31. Ra8 and 31. Rb8 also work.

The position came from this study from Dvoretsky s endgame manual hope u enjoyed

You seriously studying Dvoretzky? Sheeeeeeesh

not sure yet but I'm having fun practicing vs the engine

I've been working through the Chessable version of Recognizing Your Opponent's Resources by Dvoretsky. Went through a couple dozen losses at rapid or longer time controls and discovered I'm usually better or winning at some point in the middlegame and then miss my shot or fall for a cheapo. So to fix that I figured I'd study the most advanced prophylaxis book I could find and start grinding ChessTempo again. I think I've probably put on about 100 ELO since August.

meanwhile me working through hawkins's amateur to im endgame book with problems like these

Got it

Nice puzzle, would've gotten it first try if Ra8 was considered correct 

I think so too man its cool seeing how fast your improving

woah that looks hard

Oh yeah, I know that one... probably couldn't do it in a speed game heh.

If it's the one I think, then here's a trick... let me find a simpler position.

Let's say it's the end of a speed game. For the position below black shuffles back and forth and white is ready to push the pawn down the board. What simple trick can white use to know whether to move the pawn 1 or 2 spaces?

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Well, we don't want to go to b7 when it's check, and BOTH the black king and the pawn alternate colors on every move. So it will go black square, black square, then white square, white square, etc.

Since you don't want to give check, you move to the opposite color (black king on dark square, so your pawn goes to light square).

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The endgame you post is harder than this, but this type of thinking can help you make more advanced tricks to simplify things.

> For the position below black shuffles back and forth and white is ready to push the pawn down the board. What simple trick can white use to know whether to move the pawn 1 or 2 spaces?

If your king is allowed to reach the 6th, it doesn't matter.

Of course, but the knight pawn has stalemate traps. I've seen plenty of lower rated players mess this up. One 1600 guy OTB got so confused during analysis he claimed it must be a draw (lol)

(Try the puzzle in my next post if you think you can get it)

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Dunno, I have it recorded on my subcortex: with the knight's pawn outflank from the edge, not from the center. Pretty sure everyone who studied basic endgames knows it. If they don't, experience will teach them sooner or later.

Well learning it went like this:

me: this is easy. So easy

Me after reading some: wait no this is terrible, I would have drawn this endgame seven out of nine times

me after reading it five times over: this is easy. So easy

Good stuff. Funnily enough, I was just looking at Ralf Meyer‘s post on R + 2P v R endings. They can certainly pose practical problems. They are not simple by any means.

I got the 1st move in 1st attempt, but struggled to find the 2nd. Ra8 was considered incorrect, so I went to 2. Rc8. The rest were easier.