The celebrated ending of two knights versus a pawn is the hardest of the ‘basic’ endings, and was exhaustively analyzed long before the tablebase era. Interesting though it is, its importance is mostly theoretical, as the ending is very rare in practice. (It’s sometimes given as an example of what the practical player should not study.)
But “very rare” and “never” are two different things, and the ending cropped up yesterday in the Bunratty Challengers.
The diagrammed position shows the game at the critical point, a couple of moves before the ending in question appeared. The basic idea is well known: White needs to keep one black pawn on the board to avoid stalemate, and will usually need to blockade it behind the ‘Troitsky line’ e4-f5-g6-h4. Even then, the required winning procedure often runs foul of the 50-move rule.
The usual tablebases (e.g., Nalimov) show that from the diagrammed position Black loses with best play in 97 moves, but this does not account for the 50-move rule.
But the Syzygy tablebases give the information we need. From the diagram, Black has four moves that hold the draw via the 50-move rule: 48… Kc4, 48… Kc6, 48… g5+, and 48… h6. Instead, Diana Mirza played 48… h5?. The ending is so obscure that the ‘?’ is harsh, but this changes the valuation. White could now win via 49. Ng5! (only move), blockading the g-pawn behind the Troitsky line. It’s still a close-run thing: after, say, 49… h4 50. Ne3 h3 51. Kg3 Kc5 52. Kxh3, White mates in 49 moves with best play, with the next pawn move resetting the counter in 44 moves.
As it was, White erred with 49. Kg5?, when it’s a draw even without the 50-move rule. Using = to mean drawn with best play without the 50-move rule, and [=] to mean drawn only because of the rule, the play continued 49… Kc4? [=] (49… h4!, only move, =) 50. Ndf6? (50. Ne3+ [=]; 50. Nf4 [=]) 50… h4=. After 51. Kxh4 White continued, optimistically enough, for another 32 moves.
[Click to replay the full game.]
This is not the first Irish game to reach this ending: Keogh – Bjørgvik, World Senior 65+ Championship 2018 is the only other game in the ICU archive that did so. At all relevant stages that game was won for the two knights if not for the 50-move rule, but drawn once the rule is taken into account.
The Chess Scotland History pages have excellent coverage of many old Scottish tournament series. One such is the Glasgow Congress series that started in the early 1960’s. It included at various times a principal ‘Invitation’ tournament and a Glasgow Junior International.
In 1968, in the seventh of the series, the Glasgow Invitation included one Irish player: Michael Littleton, Irish champion in 1962 (j.) and 1965. The Chess Scotland Game Downloads page has 47 of the 48 games, only added relatively recently (less than a year ago); none of these games is in ChessBase’s Big Database 2017.
The games have been compiled into a (short-form) tournament report here.
Littleton had a relatively disappointing tournament, finishing with 2/6 (+1 =2 -3), to finish 14th out of 16. The event was won by Michael Basman on 5/6, ahead of Craig Pritchett.
The recent Dublin Blitz Championship 2020 (Gonzaga College, February 2) featured a game in which one player had the misfortune to resign in a position where he could force an almost immediate draw by stalemate. Well, these things happen: it’s not always easy to see everything on an increment of two seconds per move.
But there is an interesting puzzle buried within the game, regarding the diagrammed position:
The game went 6… Ra4 7. Rc8, and now Black could have played the obvious enough 7… Rxa6+, since 8. Kxa6 is stalemate.
But if Black instead played 6… Rb5+!? in the diagrammed position, what would happen with best play? Does Black have a draw, or can White escape?
I freely admit I got this one wrong, even with much more than two seconds to think about it.
[Click to replay game (including solution)].
(See also the YouTube video of the finish.)
The annual Gonzaga Charity Classic was held last weekend, and it seems to have surpassed all previous versions. There were 201 players across three sections, with 532 games. The very strong Masters section was won by Tarun Kanyamarala via a blitz playoff, after he had finished joint first with GMs Oleg Korneev, Constantin Lupulescu, Sergei Tiviakov, and Matthew Turner.
There were many interesting games, but the highlight has to be the round 1 win by Muhtarim-Ul Haque against Ante Šarić. The diagram shows a critical point, with Haque to move. He chose a daring continuation, but engines indicate that an even more startling move was better. How should White continue from the diagrammed position, and what should be the evaluation be with best play?
[Click to replay the full game.]
A tournament report, with 65 74 of the 97 games, has been added to the archives here.
The Williamson Shield was held last weekend at Stormont, featuring 33 players over two sections. Gareth Annesley won the main event with 5/5. A full report has been added to the archives here.
The Irish New Year 2020 events included three norm events, two rating-restricted all-play-alls, the Irish 50+/65+ Championship and a blitz tournament.
A report on the GM Norm Event has been added to the tournament section here.
As it happened, no norms were achieved; in the end, only Alex Lopez came within a point of a norm. His chances were severely damaged by an early loss in an interesting game against Henry Li.
David’s post on Maeve Binchy and chess at Kiely’s in Donnybrook brought back vivid personal memories: I remember playing a league match upstairs there very early in my playing career, probably 1976 or so, when I was 12. I even recall some whispered discussions in the background on whether I was too young to be allowed in at all, but this was when my game was already under way, and my presence was graciously accepted.
Maeve Binchy wrote well. She certainly captures the atmosphere as I remember it.
I was a bit sorry to see that Kiely’s had shut down—apparently its closing by the family who had owned it for thirty years was announced in April 2018, and it was sold in November 2019 to a developer who will turn it into high-end apartments and a rooftop bar. “It is understood the new venue will recognise the site’s strong rugby heritage”, says the Irish Times. But it has a chess heritage too.
But back to Maeve Binchy’s article. She was puzzled at first by the term “endgame theory”, but David quotes her summary: “you must learn to recognise positions on the board which are leading to a winning, a drawing or a losing ending and deal with them.” Well put! But it’s not always so easy. Here are two closely related examples where a pair of Ireland’s leading players had drawing endings but did not deal properly with them, getting a near-identical losing position instead, within a month of each other.
The first position is from Collins – Goloshchapov, Monarch Assurance Isle of Man Open 2002. The last exchange, on move 60, left a drawn ending, with the white and black kings on f3 and e5 respectively, and the pawns where they are in the diagram, with White to move. Goloschapov played on, and his persistence was rewarded when Collins played 67. Kd4?. The drawback is that after the continuation 67… Ke6 68. Ke4 Kf6, the white king could no longer get to the unique “corresponding square” f2, which it had already reached twice, with the black king on f6, on moves 62 and 65. From the diagram, White must play 67. Kd2! to draw (67… Ke6 68. Ke2 Kf6 69. Kf2=).
[Click to replay the full game.]
Less than a month later, Heidenfeld – Gagunashvili, Bled Olympiad 2002 reached the position at right, with White to play. There followed 62. Kf4 Kg7 63. Ke5?, and after 63… Kf7, the position was the same as in Collins – Goloshchapov at move 68, shifted one rank higher, and Heidenfeld was lost for the same reason: here, the white king could not reach the unique “corresponding square” f3. On move 63, White needs to be able to meet 63… Kf7 with 64. Kf3, and 63… Kf8 with 64. Kf4, so any of 63. Ke4/e3/g4/g3 will maintain the draw with best play, but no other moves (63. Kf3? Kf7 and White is in zugzwang.)
[Click to replay the full game (note: click the triangle at right in the controls under the board to enter into variations).]
In the Comments in the Simuls page Oisin McGuinness referred to an article on chess by the celebrated writer Maeve Binchy which had appeared in the Irish Times. He thought it might have been in connection with a Hecht simul in April 1974 but was concerned he might have conflated her involvement with another event. His concern proved justified but interest sufficiently piqued, I have managed to find the Binchy article on page 6 of the Wednesday, September 13, 1972 edition of the Irish Times.
It wouldn’t do to reproduce the entire article, of course – but here’s a fair use tasting menu.
Opening
“I crept up the stairs in Kiely’s pub in Donnybrook, because if there’s one thing everyone knows about chess people it is that they are quiet, calm people. The one thing they wouldn’t like would be loud noise. They were sitting at tables and there was a bit of gentle ruminative coughing, much ticking from those double clocks, graceful slithering of pawn to King’s Bishop Four, and the occasional murmur of chess conversation.
They play here on Monday and Wednesday nights and they assure me that they are not at all bookish and reserved and lost in thinking about the 18th move ahead. They are have been known to have a drink downstairs before or after or even during their night’s play.”
Middlegame
Binchy was at that time Women’s editor of the Irish Times and the article appeared in her “Women First” column. The centrepiece of her article was an interview with Aileen Noonan, Ann O’Clery and Dorren O Siochru.
“Three Irish women are going off to Skopje at the end of the month to play for Ireland at the end of this month to play for Ireland in the women’s events of the Chess Olympiad. It will last for almost three weeks and will be extremely arduous. This is only the second time (1) that Ireland has sent a team to the female events and they feel a heavy sense of responsibility. Were they rehearsing? I asked. Rehearsing was not the word that my contact man would have chosen, and he didn’t go for the word practising either. They were playing, he said firmly, and analysing their games as they went along.
I tiptoed over to the women’s team to help them analyse their games as well.”
A photograph of Noonan, O’Clery and O Siochru “analysing” accompanied the article, but rather than join in, Binchy engaged with the Irish women’s Olympiad team (and described in a whimsical and good-natured way in the article) on such issues as endgame theory (2), whether individual characteristics influenced style of play, chess clocks, attracting sponsors, the Armstrong Cup (then residing in a downstairs room in Kiely’s) and an over-subscribed beginners’ course recently advertised. On the latter the three female experts referred her to Joe Keenan, who was giving the lessons. He explained that his next lesson would include how having two rooks on the seventh rank was very good for you and very bad for your opponent. Binchy “pondered over this for some time” and then agreed with him.
Endgame
“And suddenly I was out in noisy Donnybrook again having chicken and chips in a place nearby and wishing that I had been able to whisper a few more questions in the lovely chess silence upstairs in Kiely’s, about why do the French call what we call a Bishop “Un Fou” and were female Grand Masters called Grand Mistresses. But it was all over, and I had even forgotten to wish the Irish women’s team good luck at Skopje on September 28th.”
(1) Binchy was misinformed here. Noonan had been a member of the Irish team at the previous Women’s Olympiad (Lublin 1969) but Ireland was also represented in the very first such event (Emmen 1957).
(2) “What was endgame theory, for heaven’s sake? I mean once a game was ending it was ending, wasn’t it? Not at all, you must learn to recognise positions on the board which are leading to a winning, a drawing or a losing ending and deal with them.”
