Saturday, January 21, 2006

The agony of..... a draw?!



BlueEyedRook vs. FredCassidy
January 2006 http://www.redhotpawn.com/
White to move and win
Drawing a game you should have won isn't as bad as losing that very same game, but it still royally stinks. I missed a game winning move tonight. There is only 17 possible moves for white.... but only one wins -- do you see it?

1. Kd5! is pivotal. The knight's sole duty at this late stage of the game is to take out that black pawn. The white f4 pawn can do the rest (i.e., promote and win). 1. Kd5 instantly protects the white knight from being captured by the black king. Black can't do nothing. Any movement by the king leads to simply white advancing his pawn forward. If black advances his pawn then the white knight will take it (to only be captured by the black king, but the lone white pawn can now easily promote).

What did I play? Embarassingly 1. Na5+?? This in effect accomplishes nothing, which I actually knew. I had incorrectly had assumed that the position was drawn and was hoping for black to make a mistake (ex. allow his pawn and king to be forked). No such luck.

Ughh.... well, it was only a draw, right?!

1 Comments:

At 2:47 PM, Blogger Robert Pearson said...

A good lesson--in these kinds of positions there's usually "one big thing" and nothing else matters.

 

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