How to cheat in Chess!Can anybody find a draw?

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Avatar of Toogtyvepaastribe

Played this at my club last monday and ended up with this position at 10:30 pm. My opponent declared that this would surely be a draw. He knew that I had to go up for work at 4 o´clock next morning (he´s retired himselfTongue Out) and probably hoped I would prefer to get home for sleep. He didn´t get the draw and was rather mated 45 minutes later at move 95. But he simply insisted, that -played correctly- this had been a draw! What do you think about this?

Avatar of auvo

I tried to play it out the moves and it is surprisingly hard to win.

Avatar of Toogtyvepaastribe

Yes, it takes a lot of moves, but there´s now doubt, that white should win.

Avatar of varelse1

Silman said it's a win if I recall. 

Let me look it up on tablebase.

Avatar of JamesColeman

As given, this is a trivial win, but if White had an f-pawn not a g pawn then it would be much more difficult - maybe even a theoretical draw - although even then White would retain good practical chances in the error-prone setting of a competitive game.

Avatar of varelse1

Tablebase says that is a forced checkmate in 24 moves.

You should get a copy of Silmans Complete Endgame Course.

Covers this exact endgame in great detail.

Avatar of varelse1
Avatar of varelse1

Can youbelieve I got logged out the first time I tried to post that board. And I did all 24 moves again, straight from memory?

Pretty good, huh?Tongue Out

Avatar of TheBlueKnight9

Nice.

Avatar of JamesColeman

f and g would still be won for White - even more straightforwardly in fact - it only gets tricky theoretically, when it's f and h pawns.

Avatar of JamesColeman

Back in the posted position, the only thing that can really go wrong are stalemate tricks - eg White pawns on g6 and h7, White's king on h6 and Black's K on h8. Black's rook on a6...there'd be ...Rxg6+ etc

Avatar of JMB2010

Yep, the diagram is an easy win.

Avatar of EricFleet
JMB2010 wrote:

Yep, the diagram is an easy win.

I would question the "easy" part. If you don't know the technique it is easy to let this slip into a draw. For fun, I played it in a blitz game against Fritz and managed a checkmate in 48 moves. I am sure I was inefficient, backtracking on a couple moves when I realized there were stalemate defenses.

Avatar of Flossen

Yep but it wasn't the position we talked about Remus!

The one below was the position were we claimed its an easy was draw if black plays Ra7. If Rf3 then Ra6

Avatar of EricFleet

Yes, this position is a draw. I find this a really illustrative example of how easy it is to give up a win in a Rook ending.

Avatar of varelse1

That's a win from the diagrammed position however.

1.Ra3 Ra7

2.h7!! Secures the win. The only move there that will.

2....Rxh7

3.Ra6+ Kg7

4.Kf5 Rh1

5.Ra7+ Kg8

6.Kg6 basic win.

An easier win is

1.Rf3 followed by Rf6+

Avatar of EricFleet
varelse1 wrote:

That's a win from the diagrammed position however.

1.Ra3 Ra7

2.h7!! Secures the win. The only move there that will.

2....Rxh7

3.Ra6+ Kg7

4.Kf5 Rh1

5.Ra7+ Kg8

6.Kg6 basic win.

An easier win is

1.Rf3 followed by Rf6+

He indicated it was Black to move which is a draw. However, your line is a pretty nice line... the first black move looks like he succeeeded in drawing with a stalemate defense, but it fails due to h7 

Avatar of varelse1

Black to move?

I missed that

Avatar of macer75

Discussion of cheating is not allowed on the chess.com main forums. Such discussions are only permitted in the Cheating Forum:

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Avatar of EricFleet
varelse1 wrote:

Black to move?

I missed that

Yeah, it wasn't explicit, but he says "if black plays Ra7" which I took to mean that Black was the one to move thought I could have missed it. This ending is quite a study....