Technically not up a queen tho, because you have 3 more pawns than the opponent. The 3 extra pawns are also far advanced and connected. Even 2 connected pawns advanced that far routinely beat a rook.
However, the opponent is blocking you fairly well with their king and queen. What makes the position remarkable is that you can induce zugzwang on a queen!
"Up a queen" usually means someone has a queen and their opponent has no compensation. For example if white had a rook you wouldn't say black is up a queen.
wow, that is one of the most incredible geometric ideas I've ever seen. I love the little dance at the end with Ke4-f5 as black exhausts his last pawn pushes.
First you push b6+, and King goes to c8 to avoid getting forked immediatly by c7 push.
There you do Ke4. It leaves black with zero good movements. There are 8 Queen moves and 1 King move, and all of them either instanly hang the queen or run into a pawn fork with b7 or c7. The Ke4 move covers e5 and f4.
And just in case, if Ke4 is not played the queen would escape and just pick up white's pawns.
I don't understand. When I click on "white to play" link to lichess, computer says that checking twice is the best move as you get the queen and then eat black pawn to finish in a classic pawn king - king endgame which is winning. Ke4 loses the game according to him.
You only have 4 king moves (and 2 pawn moves with obvious drawbacks) to choose from. If you haven’t resigned already, why wouldn’t you look for the best one?
In a long time format, definitely. As soon as you look at the opponents moves you realize they are in zugzwang. So if you try to calculate at all, even one move ahead, you'll see it.
Another thing to consider is that there aren’t very many moves to consider. b6 is the only reasonable move in the starting position. After Kc8 white only has 6 legal moves, so you may as well check each one.
Well b6+ is forced, and once the king moves back it is very easy to see that most king moves are bad or blocked and that b7 and c7 both lose on the spot. That doesn't leave a lot of other moves. The danger is resigning without realizing.
So actually I would not play Ke4, because I dont feel like calculating that much. But I WOULD push my c pawn after the exchanges (b6+ and resulting fork should be easy for anyone at least 1000) so that the black king is as far away as possible and I can go take the g pawn.
Because that’s the fork I assume you’re talking about, but there is no form of the king just steps back to c8 instead of d8. If it does there is only nine winning move and it isn’t a fork.
Well, the engine throws the puzzle with 1.b6+ Kd8 because that takes white one more move to checkmate and the computer does not care if it's trivial... Try to solve it yourself after 1.-Kc8.
If black allows fork, isn't it a draw? Black takes pawn-white takes queen-king takes pawn-white abandons pawn to get black pawn and black races to corner for draw?
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Dude.... I honestly tried to solve it. Ke4 neve freaking crossed my mind after the push. that's wild.
The push is the easy move (what else can you do that make sense), Ke4 is harder to find :
- it s a backward move
- you want to push those panwns to queening or forking.
Nice problem and nice solution.
... Lol, why are you repeating this?
And he still somehow fails to mention the queen getting into zugzwang is the most important reason for the move.
Average Redditor with no idea what he’s talking about trying to sound smart
Oh yeah, mate in 23 is the easy move?
I love people that look at the engine then come back and pretend they’re GMs
Crazy that you can put your opponent who's up a queen in zugzwang. This game is crazy for improbable scenarios like this
Technically not up a queen tho, because you have 3 more pawns than the opponent. The 3 extra pawns are also far advanced and connected. Even 2 connected pawns advanced that far routinely beat a rook.
However, the opponent is blocking you fairly well with their king and queen. What makes the position remarkable is that you can induce zugzwang on a queen!
Count the queens. One side has one and the other has 0.
"Up a queen" usually means someone has a queen and their opponent has no compensation. For example if white had a rook you wouldn't say black is up a queen.
Ke4 is for sure the last movement I'd think of, and after that hooooly the saddest zugzwang ever.
huh?
did you solve the puzzle
Ke4 is a wild move
This is a simplified version of a much better puzzle 8/q1k5/1pP4p/pP1K3p/P1P5/4B1pP/6P1/8 w - - 0 1
wow, that is one of the most incredible geometric ideas I've ever seen. I love the little dance at the end with Ke4-f5 as black exhausts his last pawn pushes.
Wow, that is definitely much better.
Can someone actually explain the solution? I don’t understand when you do ke4
First you push b6+, and King goes to c8 to avoid getting forked immediatly by c7 push.
There you do Ke4. It leaves black with zero good movements. There are 8 Queen moves and 1 King move, and all of them either instanly hang the queen or run into a pawn fork with b7 or c7. The Ke4 move covers e5 and f4.
And just in case, if Ke4 is not played the queen would escape and just pick up white's pawns.
After check and kc8 ke4 is the only winning move
I don't understand. When I click on "white to play" link to lichess, computer says that checking twice is the best move as you get the queen and then eat black pawn to finish in a classic pawn king - king endgame which is winning. Ke4 loses the game according to him.
Maybe the engine plays Kd8 because it immediately sees that black is lost anyway after Kc8 Ke4 but any human player would play Kc8 to avoid the fork.
Ok thank you. Love to be down voted for analysing and questionning the engine's line.
Well considering there are only two pieces that can legally move and moving one of them hangs everything...
The first move isn't the point. I think it's a nice little puzzle.
would you really find Ke4 in a game though?
You only have 4 king moves (and 2 pawn moves with obvious drawbacks) to choose from. If you haven’t resigned already, why wouldn’t you look for the best one?
In a long time format, definitely. As soon as you look at the opponents moves you realize they are in zugzwang. So if you try to calculate at all, even one move ahead, you'll see it.
Another thing to consider is that there aren’t very many moves to consider. b6 is the only reasonable move in the starting position. After Kc8 white only has 6 legal moves, so you may as well check each one.
Well b6+ is forced, and once the king moves back it is very easy to see that most king moves are bad or blocked and that b7 and c7 both lose on the spot. That doesn't leave a lot of other moves. The danger is resigning without realizing.
So actually I would not play Ke4, because I dont feel like calculating that much. But I WOULD push my c pawn after the exchanges (b6+ and resulting fork should be easy for anyone at least 1000) so that the black king is as far away as possible and I can go take the g pawn.
Sorry, where is the fork after b6+ Kc8?
Oh im dumb, im thinking about Ke5 after the fork
There is no fork unless you find the Ke4 zugzwang idea. Everything else loses.
Do you mean
?
Because that’s the fork I assume you’re talking about, but there is no form of the king just steps back to c8 instead of d8. If it does there is only nine winning move and it isn’t a fork.
Well, the engine throws the puzzle with 1.b6+ Kd8 because that takes white one more move to checkmate and the computer does not care if it's trivial... Try to solve it yourself after 1.-Kc8.
Makes you wanna cry. Beautiful.
Ke4 is diabolical
That's just rude
Cute.
Nice composition and quite simple once you actually look at the position.
Shows the power of two connected passed pawns on the 6th rank.
Fabulous lesson in tempo and the value of passed pawns. Bravo!
Levy always told me the e4 square was important…
I found the first move, but that second move was diabolical and hilarious 😆
If black allows fork, isn't it a draw? Black takes pawn-white takes queen-king takes pawn-white abandons pawn to get black pawn and black races to corner for draw?
This post has been parodied on r/AnarchyChess.
Relevant r/AnarchyChess posts:
Find the soul-crushing draw White has here! by Da_Bird8282
fmhall | github
I mean nothing can move here.
Man the second move isn't hard to see once the position is on the board, but good lord, finding that from the starting position ...
B6+ Then Ke4 Zugwang
Curious besides Ke4, other king move also wins right? But crazy Zugzwang
Edit : My bad any other move frees the Queen
400 elo puzzles
Feel like you showed your Elo by commenting that lmao.
felt wrong bossman (2250 rapid elo)
Yeah okay. Sure you are.
After b6, Kc8, what is the move? It's actually kind of brilliant. Obviously black does not go Kd8 to allow the fork.