Queen and pawn
endings are notoriously difficult for human players - even top grandmasters - to understand and play correctly.
The second diagram, where the ending actually arises, should be a forced win for Black. The correct transition to the queen endgame can also pose problems, as both the examples in this article demonstrate.
In the first diagram, from a recent top tournament, GM Karjakin (White) has been under pressure for a long time in a difficult bishop endgame. He has just sacrificed his bishop on f4 at move 69 to force promotion of his e-pawn but world number two Fabiano Caruana has a resource to reach a theoretically won queen ending.
If Caruana had just
played 61...g1Q the tablebase shows that the resulting position would be drawn despite Black's extra piece. By giving
back his bishop, Black drove the white king away from the defence of the d-pawn so that his new queen could take that
pawn with check.
The second diagram shows the position that then arose. Would you be able to win this position in practice, or even put your opponent under pressure? The commentators thought it would be very hard for Karjakin to save this ending and in fact the tablebase shows that Black can force mate in 61 moves. Caruana, however, had thought too long about capturing the bishop (even repeating the position rather than taking it at the first opportunity) and he had no time to play properly.
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(1) Karjakin,Sergey (2753) - Caruana,Fabiano (2803) [D41]
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In this example, from the recent
French Team Championship at Montpellier, White has overpressed in a bishop versus knight endgame, again with both
players running short of time. He could have kept his bishop where it protceted the a-pawn. Now his problem is that Black has
chances to create passed pawns on both wings.
At move 56 Black has to decide whether it is safe to win the bishop. Can he cope with the white passed d-pawn when his king is on holiday at h7 and his knight jaunts to the rim to eat the a-pawn? It seems that he can but best play is only a draw.
The second diagram
shows the queen endgame that arose after White's 66th move. It should be drawn but the tablebase shows that three
serious errors were committed (two by White, one by Black) before the game was decided.
The first two mistakes are far from obvious but White's final blunder, allowing the exchange of queens, was surprising. Tiredness and clock pressure presumnably explain.
Generated with ChessBase 10
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