Thursday, December 26, 2013

The twelve rook and pawns of Christmas



Black to play

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That ones a draw with a number of start moves. For example .. Ra8, then Kxf6 is met with Ra6 check. This sets up a well known (I would expect) draw with the attacking Rook on the 7th and a defending Rook on the sixth. I've had that one in practice where an IM saved a very dodgy position against me by using it. I think he'd seen the drawing idea from some way off, whereas I hadn't =.

I expect by not immediately taking on f6, White could continue the torture, making Black find table-base moves to defend.

RdC

Jonathan B said...

Yes, … Ra8 I think White should delay taking on f6 and play rook to the sixth himself to stop the defender from doing so.

The sixth rank defensive technique was Lesson Number One so hopefully it's well known to readers of this blog at least (if not to some British Championship participants).

1 … Ra8 may or may not hold - I haven't checked on Nalimov - but in any event it's unnecessarily risky. There's a much better move available. By better I mean one that conforms to a standard defensive procedure.