25 April 2014

Vexing

My failure this morning is due to exhaustion, not my failure to understand the demands of the position. This endgame study attributed to Edward Lasker appears in the Encyclopedia of Chess Endings II (1985).* There it is the eleventh problem in the text and the solution is a simple matter of reaching a version of the tenth problem.

White to move

White's difficulty stems from the failure of the simple 1.Rh5 (or Ra5) due to 1...Rd7+! and stalemate threats. I spent some time with such futile efforts against the silicon beast before I stumbled onto 1.Kc5, the only winning move.

Problem number ten is simple:

White to move



*The second edition of this volume was released earlier this year, but I have not yet invested in the updated version and am using the first edition.

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