The imprisoned king December 28, 2009
Click "Stop" on your browser to stop the music and "Refresh" to start it.

Today we take a look at a position submitted by David Kubecka of Prague. It is derived from a famous study by IM Vitaly Chekhover (sometimes given as Tschechower, Tsjechover or Czechower), a Soviet player, chess composer, and accomplished pianist. He was born in Saint Petersburg in 1908 and died in Leningrad (the same town in its Soviet era name) in 1965. Starting from 1936 Chekhover has published more than 160 endgame studies. He was considered a prominent specialist on knight endgames, and wrote several books on the subject.

From Vitaly Chekhover, Gatchinskaja Pravda, 1954

White to play and draw

The undaunting task here is to find the one move that leads to a draw – and to understand why it does so. The best way is to play with the black pieces against the computer and punish it with a win if it does not pick the right first move. You should also play the white side and defend effortlessly with the correct first move and follow-up strategy.

A more daunting task is to tackle the original study, which may have an alternative solution:

Vitaly Chekhover, Gatchinskaja Pravda, 1954

White to play and draw

The solution given by the author is 1.Rb1! cxb1Q 2.Bxb1 e3! 3.Bxf5 e2, leading to the position given in the first diagram and the positional draw that follows. However, when checking the problem John Nunn came up with the possibility of an alternative solution: 1.Rh8+ Kg4 2.Rf8 c1Q 3.h3+ Kf4 4.Be6 Ke5 5.Bxf5 Qa3 6.Rf7 Qf3+ 7.Kg1 e3 8.Re7+ Kf6 9.Rxe3 Qxf5, which, he says, looks like a fortress to him. Perhaps our analytically minded and heavily armed readers (with quads, Fritz and Rybka) can confirm John's suspicion or refute it with a clear black win.

Frederic Friedel