2013 Championship

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Swindle Of The Week


Rudy had me dead to rights in the position above. I had let myself get into time trouble (I had about 4 minutes to Rudy's 12) and found myself a rook down. Rudy had started to fall into the trap of trying to play as fast as I and played 1.Rxg7 to which I responded 1. ...Rc2+! 2.Kh3 Rh2+!! Stalemate! It was worth the 15 rating points I lost, by drawing, to see the look on Rudy's face.

After the game Kerry thought that moving the King back to the 1st rank would have held the win for white; a short demonstration soon convinced him that he was wrong.

1 comment:

Ernie said...

Don't feel so bad Rudy. That would be easy to overlook for most players, including myself! Although normally I would play Kf1-e2-d1 in the case of Rc1+, Rc2+, etc. But here that doesn't help! The EASIEST way to draw after 2.Kf1 is 2...Rf2+!. For example, 3.Ke1 Re2+ 4.Kd1 Rd2+ 5.Kc1 Rc2+ 6.Kb1 Rb2+ 7.Ka1 Rb1+ 8.Ka2 Rb2+ 9.Ka3 Rb3+ 10.Ka4 Rb4+ 11.Ka5 Rb5+ 12.Ka6 Rb6+ and white must either accept a perpetual check or stalemate. There is less chance for a mistake in this line than 2...Rc1+ since the white king is allowed to wander all the way up the board where black will have opportunities to mistakenly place the rook where white's rooks can snap it off.