"Those who say they understand Chess, understand nothing"- Robert Huebner
The recently concluded World Cup brought a lot of joy to the spectators in the form of dramatic and captivating games. One such game was Aronian-Dubov. The endgame that arose with a Rook and Pawn versus a Bishop and Pawn looked rather simple. But as the game went on it was not at all clear whether the position was a fortress or white had a way to breach it. While discussing the game with my friends Grandmaster Vishnu Prasanna and later with International Master Konguvel, I came to understand how complex the position actually was and how little was I understood when taking a casual look at the position. My Special Thanks to Vishnu for inspiring me to take a deeper look and Blog rather than being lazy and to Konguvel for pointing out Dvoretsky's Endgame and sharing his thoughts. Here are my thoughts about Aronian's endgame.
Aronian-Dubov 2nd Game 4th Round World Cup
This is the position after White's 47th move of the game. Here black played 47....Kf6
While watching this endgame live, I had the feeling that the plan played by Dubov was most natural and if there was a fortress it should be in the position with black's bishop on the b1-h7 diagonal. But later after some analysis, I realised this was very far from the truth! The 2 endgames analyzed by Dvoretsky in his Endgame Manual give good clarity about this endgame.Basically, there are three scenarios for white. His pawn on g2, g3 or g4. In all cases, it is actually better for black to maintain his bishop on the c8-h3 diagonal rather than b1-h7 diagonal in order to fight for a draw. Also, he should not just stay passive, but try to create counterplay by attacking white's pawn while white tries to get his king to black's territory.
After some manoeuvring, the following position was reached after the 54th move of Black.
Here White could have won simply with 55.Rc7+ Kg6 56.g4! Bd3 57.Rc3 Bb1 58.Rb3 Bc2 59. Rb2 Bd3 60. Kd4! forcing black's bishop out of the key diagonal and entering f5 with the king to win the game.
This is a key zugzwang position. It would be a good idea to know that white is aiming for such a position. This was shown to me GM Vishnu while watching the game online. He admitted the idea of this Zugzwang was found by his wife Doctor( and chess player) Raghavi.
The next critical moment in the game was reached after Black's 72nd move. On his 73rd move, white chose g2-g3.But it turns out that it was a big mistake letting black draw the game!
Here Black could have drawn the game with 73...Bf5+ and maintaining his Bishop on the c8-h3 diagonal.
A similar position has been analysed by Dvoretsky in his Endgame Manual. To understand this position I give below Dvoretsky's analysis of his game against Chistiakov.
The next critical moment in the game was reached after Black's 72nd move. On his 73rd move, white chose g2-g3.But it turns out that it was a big mistake letting black draw the game!
Here Black could have drawn the game with 73...Bf5+ and maintaining his Bishop on the c8-h3 diagonal.
A similar position has been analysed by Dvoretsky in his Endgame Manual. To understand this position I give below Dvoretsky's analysis of his game against Chistiakov.
This is the next critical moment in the game. Here instead of playing 76....Kg7 Dubov could have played 76.... Kf5!
Black should use his king actively and aim to attack the pawn on g3 as in Dvoretsky's game. He will aim to reach the following drawn position.
Here I would like to digress and show the game Rubinstein-Tartakower analysed by Dvoretsky which is also very important to understand similar endgame.
Here again Black could have drawn with 82....Be4 83.Rf2+ Kg6 84 g4 Bd5+ 85. Kf8 Be6 86.Rg2 Kf6 is a draw. Of course, things are already very tricky here.
Later on the 90th move, White achieved the following won position
I have merely touched upon a few critical moments from this fascinating endgame. For a detailed move by move analysis of this endgame check out my full comments on the replayable board below. I do not intend this to be a final word by any means. Instead, I would ask the interested readers to delve deeper into this and similar endgames to discover their pearls of wisdom.
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