The diagram position
occurred during 2015 in a team match game between two players rated over 2600. With care, Black should be able
to hold this endgame but it is important for him to keep both his pawns.
The diagram position
occurred during 2015 in a team match game between two players rated over 2600. With care, Black should be able
to hold this endgame but it is important for him to keep both his pawns.
Perhaps he was short of time but he allowed his opponent to simplify to the textbook ending where each side has a rook's pawn. Whether that can be won chiefly depends on how far advanced is the stronger side's pawn.
The weaker side needs to have its pawn (on the same colour as its bishop) at least on the fourth rank to have good drawing chances and even on the 5th is sometimes not sufficient. A classic example Salwe-Rubinstein, Prague 1908, where a drawing method for the weaker side was discovered half a century later.
As Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual says (4th edition, page 257): "Positions with rook pawns are quite difficult, even top grandmasters cannot avoid errors when playing them."
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