Blindfold Endgame Visualisation 9/50
#09, Vidit - Lukovic, 2020
This week’s position is the first in the book that isn’t a composed study but comes from an actual game.
In terms of a solution, the difficulty here is not so much calculating the idea but seeing it in the first place. Once you realise it’s there, working out how it works isn’t so tricky.
If you’ve seen a bunch of endgame puzzles you get a nose for the theme. You just kind of sense it’s there. Especially so, when you’re know "White draws" rather than something more generic like "White to play". For that reason alone, I didn’t find #9 the most challenging of those we’ve studied so far.
Would I have found the key resource if I’d reached this position over the board? I’m not so sure. Vidit did though. Well played, my friend. Well played.
OUTCOME: Solved
RUNNING TOTAL: 8/9
Well, it seemed to me there were two possible ways White might draw. One I thought improbable and the other more likely. So I spent some time on the latter - in fact quite a few hours over several days. Then I gave up. Probably I should have thought some more about whether the first drawing idea was possible.
ReplyDeleteMy running score: 6/9.