nepo vs magnus - Q vs R draw

nepo has just drawn a Queen vs. Rook endgame against magnus, there was no immidiate draw or stalemate.. he just couldnt drop the rook in 50 moves..

how can this be possible in elite level? how can not nepo know how to play this endgame?

no one watched the live stream? isn't this a shocking event?

is there even anyone around related to the chess here?

This is a very difficult endgame to win. There have been numerous grandmasters who were unable to convert it in their games. While it is somewhat surprising that a player as strong as Nepo couldn't do it, you should take into consideration that he was living off his 10 second increment, and also that he was playing against Magnus, who likely found the most resilient moves.

I understand the dificulty by judging stockfish's play above.. but eval bar was all white, like 98 percent.. and he couldn't turn this into a win.. and he was once (actually twice) a world champion candidate.. is this the best we can offer?

>> 05:01:05

Yes, this is probably the best we can offer

It took 32 moves to win the rook. Assuming you used a tablebase that is the minimum moves it would take against best play! I doubt anyone in the world could do that while thinking for <10 seconds a move unless they’ve memorized this position. That puts it dangerously close to 50 moves even without mistakes. And yes, there will be mistakes.

thing is magnus found all best moves to doge from losing the rook, he even set a few stalemate traps in the process.. he left his rook undefended but capturing it would have been a stalemate.. he is also human, not stockfish.. both had almost same time on their clock.

of course stockfish process all possible lines to decide but we humans have "approaches" to spesific endgames, so we "learn" how to proceed. remember a simple rook vs lone king endgame, you dont need to "think" you know how to do it.. this is also a thematic endgame, more complicated but still you should know it as a world champion candidate..

if i had done this myself and posted it here, someone would have definately told me to study basic endgames.. anyways.

@ninjaswat i used google to make a stockfish vs stockfish match from a given positions.. website was nextchessmove or something.. i somehow couldn't setup a automatic match in my chessbase 17 (powerfritz 18), managed to install stockfish as an engine though..

in time scramble it is easier to defend plus during the match GM Howell said that he had this situation during a classic game and it took him 40 moves to get the rook, this isnt as easy as it sounds and pretty sure even the top GMs dont have endgames like this memorized so they could just premove it for a win