Greenpawn, I have a question regarding Karl Kubbel's puzzle. On black's second move, why doesn't black continue pushing the A pawn? Bxd4 covers the A square, but C3 should stop that, right?
White simply won't play c3 - he'll just leave the bishop attacking the queening square and then win with his two protected passed pawns at his leisure.
e.g.
Originally posted by Data Fly White simply won't play c3 - he'll just leave the bishop attacking the queening square and then win with his two protected passed pawns at his leisure.
e.g.
[pgn]
[FEN "3N4/8/K7/3k2B1/3p4/p7/2PP4/8 w - - 0 1"]
[SetUp "1"]
{--------------
. . . N . . . .
. . . . . . . .
K . . . . . . .
. . . k . . B .
. . . p . . . .
p . . . . . . .
. . P P . . ...[text shortened]... --------------}
1. Nc6 Kxc6 2. Bf6 a2 3. Bxd4 Kd5 4. Ba1 Kc4 5. d4 Kd5 6. Kb6 Kd6 7. c4
[/pgn]
Somehow I got my colors mixed. Was thinking those white pawns were blacks, for some reason. Some sort of color dyslexia?
That's the whole point of the study and what transforms it from a tricky problem where you've got to try and calculate how to stop what looks like an unstoppable pawn into a work of genius:
[FEN "3N4/8/K7/3k2B1/3p4/p7/2PP4/8 w - - 0 1"] 1. Nc6 {If White ignores the Knight and plays 1....a2 then 2. Nb4+ picks up the a2 pawn.} 1... Kxc6 2. Bf6 {Obviously if 2...a2 than 3.Bxd4 covers the Queen square.} 2... Kd5 3. d3 {The key must be involving a c4+ from White. But first White covers the flight squares.} 3... a2 4. c4+ {4...dxc3 ep 5.Bxc3 covers the Queening square and the lone d-pawn which Black cannot attack is enough for the win.} 4... Kc5 {Now the pawn cannot prevented from promoting.} 5. Kb7 {If the Black King moves, 5...Kb4 6.Bxd4 wins but why should the Black King move. The pawn promotes.} 5... a1=Q 6. Be7 {That is checkmate. A brilliant piece of work.}
Black gets his queen but is checkmated in the middle of the board! No-one saw that coming!
Red Hot Pawn Rooks
09 Aug '15 18:59
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