Gerard MacElligott has sent another interesting game, for which many thanks, played last Saturday in the Armstrong Cup. In the diagrammed position, it’s White to play and draw.
White to play and draw
The solution is, of course, that he claimed a draw under the 50 move rule: the last capture had occurred 54 moves earlier. (A similar outcome happened recently in the World Rapid Championship in a game between Alexander Donchecnko and Hikaru Nakamura.)
[Click to replay the full game.]
Earlier, Gerard had held an advantage, and was pressing. It looked promising enough at times, for example around move 63, but I did not find any clear-cut win. Does anyone have suggestions?
A blunder at move 75 dropped a piece. Kennedy could have reached a bishop plus knight versus lone king ending 16 moves before it appeared; as the players must have been surviving on increments, it seems likely that he was building up a time reserve.
After the last capture, the Nalimov tablebase shows that Black mates in 27 moves with best play. So what went wrong? Following the sequel with the tablebase, it took far too much time to shepherd the white king into the ‘wrong’ corner: 31 moves, leaving 17 more required with best play. As it was, Kennedy almost immediately lost five moves through an inaccuracy, but later got a reprieve of 11 moves, restoring the win with best play. There was almost no margin for error, and he was unable to thread the required needle.
Dublin won the match 7-1, and the loss puts Elm Mount in danger of relegation (see table as of today). The half point saved might turn out to be very important!