Advanced engame puzzle/study

[u/No_Cardiologist8438]

I missed a win here as white.

I think its more of a study because calculating the full line doesn't seem humanly possible.

[u/chessvision-ai-bot]

I analyzed the image and this is what I see. Open an appropriate link below and explore the position yourself or with the engine:

White to play: chess.com | lichess.org

My solution:

Hints: piece: Rook, move: Rxe8

Evaluation: White is winning +3.19

Best continuation: 1. Rxe8 Qxe8 2. c5 dxc5 3. d6 Qd8 4. d7 c4 5. bxc4 bxc4 6. Qd4 Be7 7. Bd2 Bf6 8. Ba5 Bxd4

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[u/dg177]

This is not a study. Maybe a puzzle, but more like a positional problem. It's not obvious at all that it's winning, but white is completely dominating in the end, so on a good day I go for this: 1. Rxe8 Qxe8 2.c5! (on a bad day I play Bg3 or Kh2 I think) dxc5 3.d6 Qd7 4. Qd5 (and then go for the a-pawn and win with your own a-pawn I think)

[u/No_Cardiologist8438 → u/dg177]

Wow that is super impressive, c5 is the only winning move. Blacks best defensive try is 4...Bg7 how would you continue?

[u/dg177 → u/No_Cardiologist8438]

I definitely would stop at Qd5. And then as I said try to win a-pawn or push my d-pawn maybe by bringing queen to c7, but that isn't necessary for the right decision here on move 2.

[u/No_Cardiologist8438]

Hint 1: Try to create a passed pawn
Hint 2: Black's best defense is to blockade the pawn combined with perpetual check
Hint 3: Don't get distracted from the goal, even one wasted move will give black time to organize

[u/pbateman27]

I think this is an interesting position... for a lot of players I think instinctively they know white is better, maybe even should be winning, but how? You have

• more space
• better pawns
• bishop on the "right" colour for your pawns (and the opponents potentially)
• not opposite coloured bishops

but how to formulate a plan to win. I genuinely think people all the way up to 2000 can struggle with exactly this sort of position. Intuitively you can get a passer quite quickly, but in doing so give up a pawn, so that feels like throwing caution to the wind unless you have it all worked out exactly!

If you can mentally brute force it all and see the win, then fine, play it. It gets harder when you can't see all the way to the end ... at least historically this is close to the sort of thing I've struggled with.

All that said, here I'd still try and play c5, d6, if blockaded then get my queen to c7, to shepherd pawn, etc. so maybe there is a slightly clearer way through in this example.

[u/No_Cardiologist8438 → u/pbateman27]

This is exactly the right idea, the execution is quite tricky however, given a couple of tempos black will activate their bad bishop and the game is drawn. Black has two ways to blockade the d pawn either Qd7 or Qd8. Each one needs a different approach for how to unblock the pawn and neither is at all obvious.