Sunday, November 10, 2013

Is it a draw ?

While working on my knowledge module for the king and two pawns vs. king and knight endgame I had to deal with a lot of questions like this.

Given the following position.

Black to move offers a DRAW. Should White accept it ?
White has two passed pawns including a rook pawn where the knight has often trouble with. He also controls the promotion square of the pawn.
But the pawns have still a long way to go and the black king and knight are also placed not so bad.

Black is convinced he can stop the pawns and offers a Draw.

Should White accept it ?

PS: Don't cheat be looking it up in a table base like most of the engines do ...

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2 comments:

  1. Marco BelliNovember 11, 2013 at 12:06 PM

    I think black can easily draw it he can for example use the king to stop the A pawn and the knight to stop the other one. There is also the possibility to checkmate the white king if the a pawn goes to a7 and the knight to b6, but I'll ply for a draw

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  2. ThomasNovember 12, 2013 at 5:40 AM

    Yes, exactly. White should accept the draw offer. Black can easily draw. Funny thing is that Black can also win despite of not having enough mating material left. It is just using zugzwang to force white to lock itself up with the pawns and then mates by relocating the knight.

    You will probably never see this in a real game. You just step over such things if you double check engine endgame knowledge with a table base.

    Thomas...

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