April 2009

And In The End
by Dana Muller
This month we look at another rook and
pawn endgame. As in the March column,
White has a huge, likely winning, advantage.
As an aside, I’ll give a short plug for
playing matches as a complement to
tournament play. Being a player who entered
tournaments infrequently, I found each of
the three matches I played with Paul Eggers
useful in shaking off the rust (computer
chess was a joke in the 1980s). These short,
hard-fought matches served as excellent
preparation for future tournaments.
Dana Muller – Paul Eggers
Match
July 1980
From Black’s perspective, there is an
immediate decision whether to play actively
or passively. Since immediate active play
seems to result in the loss of the h6-pawn, I
think Black made the right choice.
The other headache Black has to deal
with is the where to place the queenside
pawns. They are potential targets for a rook
on the seventh rank, but advancing any one
of them has drawbacks. Moving the c-pawn
to c5 soon requires b6 as support; this allows
the white king an easy road to the queenside.
Moving a pawn to a6 or a5 leaves a hole at
b6, and it may be possible for white to fix
the weakness with c3-c4-c5.
32. h4 Kf6 33. Rd4 Re7
Beginning to maneuver the white rook
and king; Black can’t allow the exchange
of rooks
34. Rd6+ Kg7
Black needs to defend the h-pawn.
35. Kf4
37. Rh7! (a useful finesse) 37. ...Kg6 38.
Rxb7 Rf2+ (forcing a temporary retreat) 39.
Kg3 Rxc2 40. h5+ Kf6 (40. ...Kg5 41. Rg7+
Kf6 42. Rg6+ gives White an extra tempo)
White’s edge is clear: a pawn ahead and
more active rook. That there are pawns on
both sides of board is what gives White a
probable win. If you removed all six
queenside pawns, the position would be a
draw. With that in mind, White should try
to limit pawn exchanges as much as
possible.
Looking at the big picture, white plans
to first fix the kingside with h3-h4-h5, and
if allowed, to fix the queenside with moves
such as a2-a4, c3-c4-c5. Complementing the
pawn moves will be rook and king
maneuvers looking to infiltrate the black
position. The initial part of this grand
strategy will be fixing the black pawn as a
weakness on h6. Black will need to defend
the h6-pawn: if the pawn falls White will
have connected passed pawns which should
be decisive.
35. ...a6
Black decides to defend passively (at
least for the time being).
The active 35. ...Re2 deserves
consideration. This move is Black’s best
chance to making active play work, since
White is less advanced at this point (i.e.
white hasn’t fixed the pawn structure). 35.
...Re2 36. Rd7+ Kf6 (on 36. ...Kg8 [or Kf8,
Kh8] 37. Kf5 idea 38. Kg6 with both mate
threats and attacking the h-pawn looks very
bad for black.)
41. Rh7 (h-pawn!) 41. ...Rxc3+ 42. Kh4
Rc2 43. Rxh6+ Kg7 44. Rd6.
April 2009 Northwest Chess Page 27