I love Sundays. Sleep all the way till 7.30 – sometimes even 7.45. Only 4-6 hours of work. Season 3 of Homeland is not all bad, though episode 9 contained some really far fetched ideas.
I just did not want to do this yesterday and I did not have the time last week.
But here we are: The first two windows on your daily chess calendar. Solutions given the day after in the same thread – though obviously you are allowed to give your own punch.
Week 1 will be endgames. Sunday is the first day of week two.
For Problem 1, unless I made a gross error (quite often), I was thinking that Black wants to repeat by playing Kg6/Kf6 to win the d7-pawn since White lacks enough squares to defend it, thus:
1. Kc4 Kg6 2. Kxc5 Kxh7 3. Kd6 Kg6 4. Ke7 Rxd7+ 5. Kxd7 Kf5 6. a4 +-
was my main line.
Your solution is correct. What about number two? I will give the solution to that as soon as some has seriously tried to solve it.
Number Two: Jussupow (Linares 1992) played the correct move (reversed colours) against Ljubojevic.
@Treibgut
I wish this was so.
1… Kd6? 2. Kd2 Ke6 3. Kc3 Kd5 4. Kd3 Kd6 5. Kd4 Kd7 (5… Ke6 6. Kc5+-) 6. Kd5 (6. Kc5 Kc7 7. Kd5 1-0 Gunina-Goryachkina, Nizhny Novgorod 2013) 6… Ke7 7. Kc6 Ke6 8. f5+ Ke7 9. Kc7 1-0 Sazonova – Yusuf, Khanty Mansiysk 2007.
The correct drawing move is 1… Ke7! 2. Ke3 (2. Kd3 Kd7 3. Ke4 Ke6=) 2… Ke6 3. Kd3 (3.Kd4 Kd6) (3. Ke4 f5+=) 3… Kd5 4. Ke3 Ke6=
In the Yusupov game the pawns were on g3 vs. g5 and h5. But the same ideas count of course…
I Managed to both
Very nice idea Jacob looking forward to Christmas Time
I had the first one correct, and for the second one my first move was correct (1…Ke7), but I missed the idea …f5+. So one and a half for me :-).
By the way, I like the endgame excercises for a change – there is no link with the fact that you’re at the moment writing a GM Training book on the subject?
@Ray
In university they gave partial credit, but unfortunately in a tournament game there is no compensation…
@Ray
The link is only by association. I was thinking we needed endgame exercises, but they are not from the book.