This position is from the endgame of my most recent game against the computer chess engine Shredder (set to a reduced strength of about 1500 ELO to enable me to get to the endgame). Shredder was playing with the white pieces and just moved his king to f5 with 53. Kf5. How should Black respond? During the game, I spend a while pondering over the candidate move 53. ... Kxd6, exchanging the rooks. However, I decided that I may be better off using the rook to support my passed pawn on the h-file and played 53. ... Rg8. Of course, I never managed to push the pawn all the way to promotion and ultimately lost the game. What do you think? Is the rook exchange a good idea for Black in the shown position?

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Temposchlucker
written by Temposchlucker, January 17, 2007

It's a draw either way.

Exchange Options
written by Thomas David Baker, January 18, 2007

Crafty says that this is a definite draw either way. So I guess the question of swapping of rooks depends on the circumstances other than the position. Are you ahead on time and want to keep it as complicated as possible (don't exchange)? Is your opponent better than you and you've done very well to get to this position (do exchange)?

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written by Sciurus, January 18, 2007

Temposchlucker:
indeed, both ... Kxd6 and ... Rg5+ draw. The move I played (... Rg is evaluated less favorably for Black, though.

Re: Exchange Options
written by Sciurus, January 18, 2007

Thanks for the hints. At the moment, I have two pronlems in this kind of position:
1.) I have problems evaluating positions in general - unless somebody has a clear material advantage, I rarely know who is better off.
2.) I have to start considering draws as game result. That sounds strange, but most of my games so far were either clearly lost or won by large material advantages or checkmates. To be honest, I did not even consider a draw here but looked for a winning move only. After the game I realized that drawing would have been a good outcome for me

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written by dwv16, January 18, 2007

my gut didn't say draw, but an exchange didn't look good with white closer to both his and black's pawns. I didn't try playing it out but I can see how black could probably - well i guess definitely - get over for the draw.

that's still a helluva good game against 1500! what time control?

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written by Sciurus, January 18, 2007

If Black captures the rook with 53. Kxd6 then White is practically forced to capture the rook with 54. Kxg6. 54. ... Ke5 then separates the White king from his pawns and enables Black to capture the white pawns.

I don't know how relevant these ELO numbers are. It is just the setting in the Shredder options. If I set Shredder to 1400 I score about 25% giving me an estimated rating of 1200 which happens to be close enough to my std. rating at ICC. I sometimes play slow games against the computer when I cannot make sure that I do not get interrupted.

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written by TommyC, January 26, 2007

53. ... Rg8 is a bit of a shocker. You just don't want to be a pawn down in an endgame unless you really have to be - whatever whimsical positional ideas tempt you!

You really just have to calculate hard these positions if you don't know them. Lots of if-thens and closing your eyes and visualising. Then you conclude what you can play for.

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written by Sciurus, January 26, 2007

I agree with this but I have big problems with calculating moves, particularly in the endgame where variations tend to get very deep. I started to practice this a bit but I still struggle even with very simple endgame positions. Many correct moves just look very "unnatural" to me

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