Author: Albert Silver
Date: 08:24:33 11/12/04
I was extremely annoyed to see the following position squandered by PD (custom
settings) against Fritz 8,
[D]7k/1p5p/p1n5/8/5N2/1P6/5K2/8 b - - 0 1
and decided that it was such a clear win that I would need to see whether I
could modify the settings to help it in the right direction. The first thing I
did however was to test Shredder 7.04 with Black to assure that the engines were
indeed capable of winning this. I gave them both 15 minutes, as that was more or
less the time left from the above 30min game, and Shredder proceeded to do very
well until it reached this position:
[D]8/7p/8/6k1/1n6/6N1/p7/K7 b - - 0 11
Here my jaw fell open as Shredder threw the win right out the window with
11...h5???? showing it wasn't much better.
With 11...h6 the win is clear and white cannot hold the pawn back. Black has
managed to keep the white king all the way on a1 so the king will be unable to
help knight prevent the pawn from promoting. Here is some analysis for the win:
11...h6 (11...h5?? 12.Nxh5 draw) 12.Ne4+ Kf4 13.Nf6 Kf5 14.Nh5 Nd5 15.Ng7+
(15.Kxa2 Kg5 16.Ng3 (16.Ng7 Nc7!! 17.Kb3 Kg6 and the knight is lost) 16...Kg4
17.Ne4 Kf3 and the knight is pushed away) 15...Kg6 16.Ne6 h5 and the pawn cannot
be stopped.
Albert
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