This position is from one of my recent games at ChessWorld shortly before I blundered and lost a pawn - it is amazing how easily I commit to tactically questionable moves even when there are only few pieces left. Anyway, here I (White) am one pawn ahead and in contrast to Black's pawns, my peasant army is forming one uninterrupted chain. Therefore, I figured that I might be able to win this game against a higher rated opponent. I spend serious time analyzing the position but nevertheless was never sure if White has a winning position or not. The general problem for not-that-great players like me in these situations is that it is quite tricky to evaluate this kind of position. Is there any chance for me to find out who is winning without hiring a chess coach?

White is a pawn ahead and simply asking the computer to evaluate the situation gives quite a simplistic answer, too - I tried several chess engines like Shredder and Crafty and they all evaluated the position more or less as +1 - White is rougly a pawn ahead. Of course, I can count the few pawns on the board myself, so this "answer" does not get me any further. The simple apprach of battling it out didn't give me an answer either. I won the game, but only because Black forfeited on time about 20 moves later. May be he died of boredom? I may never find out.

A win by forfeit never feels quite right to me and I really wanted to know if White can win here. Therefore, I plugged the position in the computer and tried a few times to convert the one pawn advantage in a win - not surprisingly, the silicon chunk in my notebook won every single time because I am simply unable to play more than a dozen or so moves without blundering. After spending hours on this I was still not sure how to evaluate this position!

After banging my head against this problem for too long it finally occurred to me that I have 24/7 access to several 'grandmasters' - a collection of computer chess engines! I started a match between two chess engines with the starting position above. To make sure the answer is not influenced by the limited computing power of my notebook, I gave them 60min "thinking" time to finish the game. After waiting two hours, the answer to my problem was rather boring, because White, played by Shredder, was not able to convert the material advantage into a win. Therefore, I now I dare to assume that the position is dead drawn. However, does this mean that human grandmasters would also agree to draw here? I don't know, but this kind of analysis is the best I can come up with for now, unless I hire a chess coach who may be able to explain the position to me in plain English.

Comments (15)

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written by likesforests, August 27, 2007

Theoretically, it's probably drawn. Consider that if either the minor or major pieces were traded off, the position would be drawn.

Practically, it's going to be a good fight!

Rook & minor piece vs Rook & Minor Piece endings aren't covered by most books. If you want to learn the endings, check out "endgame Secrets" by Lutz or "Chess Endgames 4: Strategical Endings" by Müller.

I would love to learn these, but I still have to master rook endings and minor piece endings before I'm ready to tackle these.

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written by Sciurus, August 27, 2007

Yes, there's a lot to learn. Aside from Pandolfini's Endgame Course, I have only Fine's "Basic Chess Endings" which I found in a used book store. It might be a good source to look things up which is perfectly fine during correspondence chess games but up to now it is just way over my head. Of course the whole idea of looking things up requires learning the basics first...

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written by likesforests, August 27, 2007

Pandolfini is a great first endgame book... I've read it at least a half-dozen times! Fine is more a reference encyclopedia than a learning textbook, as you've discovered.

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written by Sciurus, August 27, 2007

I wish I could say that I worked through Pandolfini's Endgame Course a single time. I agree that it is a great intro text. However, I always get stuck in the details of one position and it takes me forever to figure all the variations out. So I never made it to the end. For now, I am still focusing on tactics and have very little time left for endgames but I plan to change this in a few months.

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written by likesforests, August 27, 2007

The positions you should know inside out are in chapters 5-9 (pawns), chapter 14 (rooks), and chapter 10 (queen/rook vs pawn). The rest is not as important.

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written by Sciurus, August 27, 2007

Thanks for the tip! Like you wrote, the Q vs. pawn is not to be underestimated. I spend a lot of time with some problems where the solution of a pawn-only endgame ended with someone promoting and the only comment being "draw". Fortunately, I stubmbled over a nice video at chess-videos.com explaining the basics of Q vs. P.

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written by Robert, August 28, 2007

I'll throw in my two cents, which is that the important question is not whether the position is a theoretical win, but the right way to play for a win--I'll admit that I've even lost "pawn-ahead" positions like this a couple of times, refusing to accept a draw when there were no more realistic chances and making moves with a logic like "Well, this move draws so I'll have to find a different one..." You can imagine how that can turn out!

In an OTB game between equals with say 30 minutes a side for the rest of the game I'd give White about a 50-50 chance to win. Just try to restrict Black's pieces and wait for an inaccuracy--easier said than done, it's true. But the main thing is not to allow counterplay and not to give yourself any losing chances by trying too hard. And if he draws, good for him!

Hard experience speaking...

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written by Sciurus, August 28, 2007

... the important question is not whether the position is a theoretical win, but the right way to play for a win

Robert, I agree with you there. Just knowing that you have a won game does not help you to pull it off. However, the way you play for a draw seems to me quite often very different from playing for a win, not to mention the psychological dangers you mentioned.

You are probably right with OTB games and time issues. However, with my attraction to blundering moves, it would be probably me who should be lucky to draw...

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written by Robert, August 28, 2007

However, the way you play for a draw seems to me quite often very different from playing for a win, not to mention the psychological dangers you mentioned.

That's an excellent point--if you're just trying to draw a position where you know you're worse then it's just focusing on one thing. But trying to win and not allowing any losing chances is much trickier...it took me years to accept that some nice looking positions can't be won, but can be lost if forced badly enough!

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written by Armand Rousso, August 29, 2007

It is wonderful. The end of game techniques is marvelous. I have read Pandolfini's Endgame Course at least thrice.

Armand Rousso
http://chess.armandrousso.biz/

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written by Sciurus, August 29, 2007

Robert:

..it took me years to accept that some nice looking positions can't be won, but can be lost if forced badly enough!

Same here. Sometimes I simply don't even want to know that it is drawn but rather go down in an exciting fight than to sit tight and play for the draw!

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written by Sciurus, August 29, 2007

Armand:

yes, chess endgames can be beautiful indeed. And good endgame technique more often than not requires playing moves that are totally counter-intuitive but turn out to be the only choice. I am still stunned how people came up with all these ideas, but I guess it took many, many years before computers started to build tablebases.

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written by Polly, August 30, 2007

I can relate to Robert's comments about losing endings where I was up a pawn. It's easy to fall into the mentality of "I'm up a pawn, I'll trade down and win with the extra pawn." Often in my quest to convert the position I either get into insane time trouble and implode with seconds left on my clock, or I under estimate my opponent's pieces and do something stupid like fall into a skewer or fork.

In this position I don't really see a way for white to take advantage of the isolated c pawn. However if black offered me a draw at this point I would most likely decline and at least try for the win.

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written by Sciurus, August 30, 2007

Polly-
thanks for the comment. During the game I was convinced I could win this one but I really need more experience with endgames.
You have a nice blog, btw.!

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written by Polly, September 01, 2007

Thanks! It's coming along slowly. I finally got a game up on one of my older articles. If I spent as much time working on my chess as I did getting the stupid thing to work right, maybe I wouldn't be such a putz.

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