Lessons From Prague

MY round-one game in the world senior team 65+ championship reached a knight-and-pawn ending in which my active king made up for being a pawn down.

Indeed in the following position I thought I was winning, as Black appears to be in zugzwang.

I have just played 44.Ke5-d5

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However Stockfish17 and Dragon1 demonstrate there are at least five moves that draw, including the game's 44...Nf4+.

The biggest surprise to me is that one of the five drawing methods is with 44...Nd4!?, even though after 45.Nxd4 cxd4 46.Kxd4 White has a protected passed pawn.

That is normally fatal for the opponent, but the engines demonstrate that here it is not so.

Black has to play the fairly obvious 46...Kd6, when the try 47.Ke4 Ke6 48.Kf4 Kf6 49.Kg3 Kg5 50.Kh3 Kf5 51.Kh4 Kg6 gets nowhere.

The black king remains within the square of the white passer, and 52.c5 Kf6 53.Kxh5 Ke6 54.Kg5 Kd5 55.Kf5 Kxc5 56.Ke5 Kc6 57.Kd4 Kd6 also fails to make progress.

LESSON One is that a distant passed pawn can make up for a protected passer.

LESSON Two is the old but easily ignored advice that you cannot play by general principles alone ('a protected passer is a major weapon in a pawn-ending') - concrete analysis is necessary.