Possibilities

This afternoon was my after school chess club for beginners. "Beginners" in the context of my two after school clubs at the same school references a lack of successful tournament experience. Once a student has scored three points in a five round scholastic tournament, he or she is eligible for the advanced club. That is the standard for qualifying for our state championship, an event that draws one thousand or more elementary children together each spring.

The plan for today was to present them with worksheets from my Essential Tactics set. Essential Tactics are 150 simple exercises with ten pieces or fewer. I composed 130 or so, and a few others are standard endgame positions one finds in many textbooks, a Paul Morphy composition, and one clearly derived from Paul Morphy's composition. These 150 exercises are available at Amazon in two forms: Essential Tactics: The Worksheets (2017) presents the 25 worksheets that I use with my students in reproducible form (permission is granted to purchasers), and Essential Tactics: Building a Foundation for Chess Skill (2017) offers the same exercises with solutions in Kindle Reader format.

When I arrived at school, I made photocopies of worksheets 5-10. Some of the students wanted number six, others chose number five. I also wanted to present a simple tactical exercise on the demo board, but did not prepare one beforehand. On the drive to school, I remembered a blitz game that I played this morning and what seemed like a simple tactic to reach a drawn position. However, once I set it up on the demo board, it became clear that my opponent missed a clear win. The more I looked at the game before and after my intended "instructive position", the more interesting it became.

White to move

The game continued 49.Bb2+ Kd5 50.Bxe5 Kxe5 51.Kc3 and the position is clearly drawn although we played out to move 63 before I was able to claim a draw by repetition.

That simple sequence would have been fine for my beginning students, except that both players blundered on move 49, and Black also had a much better move 48 that wins easily.

If we back up a few moves, we find a position that should result in a draw, although Black has an extra pawn.

White to move

45.Kb3

An error, according to engine analysis, but it seems not yet a fatal one. After 45.Bf4, White has demonstrated the idea to keep the Black king from penetrating and the passed pawn from advancing.

45...Bb6 46.Bc1 Bc7 47.Bd2

White understands the importance of e3 as an entry point for the Black king.

47...f4

White to move

48.Bc1??

The bishop is well placed, White needed to move his king.

48...Be5

Now, we have the first position in this post.

Black could have played 48...d2 and after 49.Bxd2 Kd3 50.Bc1 Ke2, Black has an easy win.

49.Bb2?? Kd5??

49...Ke3 wins. 50.Bxe5 d2 51.Kc2 Ke2 and the pawn promotes.

The game continued as above.

I showed the students the skewer and what happened, then tried to elucidate the possibilities of what might have happened.