/chess/ - Brain Gains edition

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Pic related is for endgame analysis practice. Work out if it's winning, losing or drawn and explain why. White to move. Don't use an engine.

Someone give me a game:
lichess.org/NUp7epl0

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Pretty simple, White has basically lost. Only available moves are sacrificing the pawn on H3 which will give black a queen in a few moves, or retreating the king, which will cost the pawn on E3 in a few moves, ultimately resulting in a loss for white.

how can white boys even compete?

Unfortunately wrong. I won't go into detail incase others want a go first but look up king opposition (specifically how it works diagonally).

...

KD2, KE2, KF2, H4.

The game's a draw.

draw? White king covers e3 indefinitely

white can defend e pawn no matter what. it's a draw

This is correct, with correct play it is a dead draw.

Both b2 and d2 are losing for white as the black can push the white king away and forcibly win e3.

Kc2 allows white to gain opposition and force a repetition.

ok, give us another :-)

Will do, I'll try and find an interesting one.

This is a position from one of my real life games (I'm black) that I should have lost but drawn through repetition.

White played Rxd1 which on the surface looks like a clever trick. But after Qb7 things get complicated. There are moves lose instantly for white (either through mate or queen and king forks with the knight) and there are lines that draw and fall into forced repetitions. But this is winning for white after Qb7, try and figure out why. Some of the winning lines for white are counter intuitive at first but try and calculate as far as possible until you are confident.

>tfw fell for the starting stalemates meme

You could always switch to learning the French Defence, this involves resigning on move 2.

oops, I mean't Rxd8 as first move

I'd just flip the board off the table desu.

This is also winning

About to go to bed, so not able to contribute to the thread much. Anyway.

Your knight looks like a key player after Qb7. Blocking with f3 is out, and in fact either Qf3 or Kf3 will become a strong threat soon.

I'd go with white's king to h3, to keep black from putting in check again.
After that, advance the h pawn to get the other castle into the game? After all, black will have to respond to h5 in some way.

Play go

lichess.org/nzENmIP3
not op but play me senpai

or anyone rly

>I'm black
TRIGGERED

h3 is mate in one. Qxh1# (your pawn and knight cover his escape square). Guess I'll take a crack at it.

Back to 1. ... Qb7+. Let's look over the possibilities. His queen can't block, and if he blocks with the d-rook or the e-pawn, Black takes and White gains nothing. We also know Kh3 is mate. So that leaves 3 moves: Kh2, Kg1, and Kf1.

Ideally we want to check with every single move. Once the knight leaves, Black's situation looks pretty precarious since White's got his pieces all around the Black king.

So let's start with 2. Kg1 Nf3. White can't block the knight cause it's a knight, and can move to Kg2 (bad idea) or Kf1 (only real option). Black to move. The obvious choice is to kill the queen but OP promised counterintuitive lines so I'll look for those.

First let's try to sac the knight. 3. ... Nh2 is horrible cause I lose the knight and the rook escapes to safety. And I can't check the king either (without losing the Queen). No bueno. If I play Nd2 then 4. Rxd2 Qxh1+ 5. Ke2 and I have no easy way to dislodge the king. And he's a rook up now. So let's not sac the knight. Let's do the obvious move.

So we'll pull ahead with 3. ... Nxg5. I want to take the rook (with my queen) at which point the king will have to go to e2. Let's say he takes the knight. Then I can do 4. ... Qxh1+ 5. Ke2 Qh5+. That pawn getting out of the way gave me another avenue of attack at the king. If he blocks with g4 he's a retard. He can either scoot the king back or play f3. Let's say he does the latter. Then our line is 6. f3 Qxg5 7. Re8+ Kf7. From here the rook has to move to safety, the Black queen can gobble pawns, and Black can win the Queen vs. Rook endgame. GG.

If the King moves away on move 6 I don't see an easy way to win for White. Someone else want to do the honors?

Oh shit I misread the problem. I thought it was "winning for black".

I checked with an engine so I don't think I should volunteer any more information, but apparently white wins around move 30.

Gotta get ready for work, but one of the winning lines for white involved pushing both pawns (e4, takes, then f3, takes) in the way for the black queen to take before retreating to a position with no checks left. Looks suicide but is actually very safe.

> h3 is mate in one. Qxh1# (your pawn and knight cover his escape square). Guess I'll take a crack at it.

Yep, totally overlooked that the rook on d1 is now d8. Stupid. If this becomes a regular thing, I should really look to get a chessboard again.

You should. The threads are semi-regular.

What I don't understand is, why is e4 necessary? Why not 2. f3 straightaway?

lichess has a board editor and analysis desk where you can plot out different lines. Comes with computer analysis if you want to see the (almost) optimal line.