Wednesday 15 November 2017

The injustice of it all

While wearing my ICCF Tournament Directors hat, I discovered something I had not previously been aware of. There are some Queen endings where two connected passed pawns aren't enough to win. This was drawn to my attention when a game in an event I was directing was drawn after one of the players made a tablebase claim (In Correspondence Chess a player can claim a draw or win if the position is assessed as such in a 6 piece or less tablebase). While the claim was perfectly valid I did feel a little sorry for the other player involved.
Even without the advantage of modern technology, the game may well have been drawn anyway, as it turns out there have been some precedents.  In 1985 Boris Spassky was defending exactly the same position against Zoltan Ribli and successfully held. Here is the game in question, with Black having a completely drawn potion by move 82.


Ribli,Zoltan (2605) - Spassky,Boris V (2590) [A30]
Candidates Tournament Montpellier (4), 1985



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