Computer Precision in a Historic Endgame – Karpov–Kasparov, 1984, game 9

Karpov – Kasparov 1984 match – game 9
 Black to move
In his recent book, Kasparov comments that 66… Bh1 has not found any refutation yet. It is now possible to say that there never will be any refutation because this 8 piece endgame can be completely pre-computed with FinalGen. It is a draw indeed, and Bh1 is the only move! In the game, Kasparov played Bb7 and lost…

Chess Strategy - Exchanging pieces to a favourable Bishop Vs. Knight endgame - Video

When playing against young players, the most reliable strategy in chess often is to trade off into an endgame. In this game White placed his pawns on dark squares, despite having traded off the light squared bishop. Those pawns became an easy target for my king and bishop once the heavy pieces came off the board.

Karpov – Miles, Combination in the Endgame

Karpov – Miles, 1982

 White to move. Black had just captured on ‘d5’ with the knight, and Karpov has prepared a refutation. What is it?

Note: the first move of the combination is pretty obvious, but White’s second move is more difficult to find, and without it White would be in trouble.

For the solution, and brief overview of the entire game (taken from the “Mastering the Endgame” book by Shereshevsky) - watch the YouTube video from my YouTube channel:

A different blog post talks about the same endgame: Sicilian Dragon - from the opening into the endgame.

Sicilian Dragon - from the opening into the endgame

DDT3000 – bobhill, ICC, 2010

  White to move. Black’s rook is very active and is attacking White’s pawn, so White needs to find his own counterplay. Hint: the strength of the bishop is that it can transfer from one side of the board to another very quickly, White just needs to find targets for the bishop on the queenside.

See the video with the solution and overview of the complete game:

This video shows a 15 minute chess game I played on the internet; an example of applying familiar endgame patterns I learned from Anatoly Karpov's games. Typical Bishop vs. Knight themes apply here as the bishop ends up being stronger when there are passed pawns on both sides of the board.

Endgame where computer engines fail

Jiganchine – Koons, 2006
White to move.
The question is - can White sacrifice the piece with 54. h6 or does he have to play 54. Bf6.
8/6K1/8/3k3P/1p1B4/2n3P1/8/8 w - - 0 54

54. h6!! Interestingly, the winning line is too long for computer to appreciate why it wins, so some engines recommend Bf6 instead as the best try  Kxd4 55. h7 b3 56. h8=Q b2 57. Kf8+ Kd3 58. Qh7+ Kc4 59. Qf7+ Kd3 60. Qf5+ Ke3 61. g4 b1=Q 62. Qxb1 Nxb1 63. g5

now the knight cannot catch up with the pawn and White wins:
63…Nd2 64. g6 Ne4 65. g7 Nf6 66. Kf7 Ng4 67. Kg6 +-

 

My opponent also did not calculate far enough (that line was only 13 moves deep), and in the original position he played 54. Bf6? After 54… Ne4!  55. h6 (55. Bb2 Nxg3 56. h6 Nf5+ 57. Kg6 Nxh6 was probably what he missed.) 55... Nxf6 56. Kxf6 b3 57. h7 b2 58. h8=Q b1=Q
This is a draw according to tablebases, but of course with about 10-20 SD minutes remaining for each side,  it would not be so easy to play this correctly for either side. In the end I managed to salvage a draw in this tiring queen endgame.

Improving Chess Analysis Skills – Bishop against Knight endgame

I am a believer in the approach of analyzing one’s games as a major tool for chess improvement, and already wrote a post about it. I keep a database of all games I played, and as I am bored – look back at my old endgames from many years ago. Most of them are more complicated than they appear on the first sight, but what I find even more interesting is that my old annotations from around 1999-2001 often contain more mistakes than the actual games. Mark Dvoretsky pointed out the phenomena that players are more relaxed during analysis than during the actual games, so annotations contain even the most obvious errors. He used Shirov’s games, but then also went on to give an example of how Kasparov missed mate in one while annotating Lasker-Steinitz game. I suspect in a lot of cases, including my own – the process of finding mistakes in old analysis has to do with

• computer engines having become stronger by the time you get around to double check your analysis
• having more time to focus on a position (Alexei Shirov is probably a bit more busy playing in tournaments than Mark Dvoretsky, I also don’t play as much now as I used to)

Medalen – Jiganchine, 2000

Black to move. Does 73… Bb8 win?

I played 73…g3!?, and after 74. Nd6 Bxd6 we both promoted our pawns, I got a drawn queen endgame with an extra pawn (which my opponent quickly lost). During and after the game in my analysis I was convinced that Bb8 wins on a spot. But actually – it leads to an even more forced draw. This must be some kind of optical illusion that makes you think that a bishop is doing a superior job to a knight in blocking a pawn, but they are actually equivalent as the next diagram shows.

74. Kb5! g3 75. Ne3 h5 76. Kxa5 h4 77. Kb6
Black to move. There is no win.
77… g2 78. Nxg2 Kxg2 79. a5 h3 80. a6 h2 81. a7 Bxa7+ 82. Kxa7 h1=Q 83. b8=Q = with a dead draw