The Miles Report

Kings and Pawns

Some months ago Gary Kasparov won the World Cup Rapid
championship in Cannes, France beating Evgeny Bareev in the final. In
the diagrammed position,
Bareev (Black to play) resigned,
partly because he thought he was
completely lost, and partly because
he had only a few seconds left on
the clock. Only after the game was
it pointed out that in fact the
position is quite an easy draw:
The Miles 1...Kc6! 2.Kc4 Kd6!
Report Actually even 2Kb6 is close, but
after 3.Kd5 Kb5 4.Ke5 a4 5.ba Ka4
6.Kd5! Kb5 7.a4 Kb4 8.a5 white
Tony Miles will win the queen ending.
3.Kb5
After 3.a4 Kc6 white has no way through.
3...Kd5 4.Ka5
Again 4.a4 Ke4 is no better.
4...Ke4 5.a4
Now if 5.b4, 5c4 even wins for black.
5...Kf4 6.Kb6 Kg3 7.a5 f4 8.a6 f3 9.a7 f2 10.a8(Q) f1(Q) with a
simple draw.
I guess with accelerating time limits we can expect more of this.
Perhaps it is not so bad anyway, as Bareev had not played an
aggressive move in the entire game, but it is not the way one would
wish to see top events decided. I was reminded of this finish a couple
of months later in one of my own games:

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White: R.Gerber Black: A.J.Miles

Crans Montana 2001
In this position I continued, as
planned, with 1...Be3 2.Ke3 Kf6
forcing white to exchange on g6.
3.fg fg!
Preparing to set up a decisive
outside passed pawn.
4.Kf2
Nor would 4.f4 help: 4...ef 5.Kf4 g5
6.Kg4 (else h5 and Ke5) 6Kg6 followed by h5 and Kf6-e5 with an
easy win. Also inadequate is 4.h4 g5 when 5.hg Kg5 gets the Black
king in to f4, while 5.h5 Kg7 and Kh6 just rounds up the h pawn.
4...Kg5 5. Kg3 b6
The next step is to use up white's
tempo moves on the queenside.
6.c4
If white plays h4 at any time it will
just lead back to the game.
6...c5 7.b5
7.bc bc 8.b3 a5 does not make any
real difference.
7...ab 8.cb c4 9.h4
If white retreats his king then Kf4 followed by advancing the h-pawn
wins easily.
9...Kf6

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And white is in zugzwang. If Kg4

(or Kh3) h5 followed by g5 sets up
the outside h-pawn. However, if it
were black's move here, h5 would
be met by f4 and white would
control g5.
10.f4 h6 11.Kg4 ef 12.Kf4 g5
13.hg hg 14.Kg4 Ke5 15.Kg5 Ke4
16.Kf6 Kd5

and white, who was also on the

point of losing on time, resigned.
At the time I was quite pleased,
thinking I had played quite a
competent ending. It was only when
the game was published that I got a
couple of emails pointing out that
the final position is not winning!!
My first reaction was incredulity,
but these days anyone who runs
Fritz while playing through games
can come up with something
unexpected, so I took a look. The rather surprising point is that after 17.
Ke7 Kc5 18.Kd7 Kb5 19. Kd6 Kb4 20.Kc6 if black plays 20...Kb3
then 21.Kb5 draws immediately. Hence 20...b5 (20...Ka5 21.Kd6
doesnt help; but not 21.Kd5 b5! - see later) 21.Kb6 Ka4 22.Kc5 Ka5
23.Kd5!
and the position is mutual
zugzwang! White to play would
lose: Kc5 Ka4, or Kd4 Kb4, or Kc6
b4. But black to play can do
nothing. A remarkable resource,
and despite having edited a large
chunk of the Encyclopaedia of King
and Pawn Endings many years ago,
not one I have seen before.
So where did I go wrong? In fact it
was only my last, careless, move
that is the mistake. Instead of
16Kd5 either 16...Kd4 or 16Kd3 followed by c3 wins trivially. For
example: 17. Ke6 c3 18.bc Kc3 19.Kd6 Kb4 20.Kc6 Ka5 and wins.

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So chess retains its inexhaustibility, but these days it seems it pays to

keep a few spare minutes on the clock!
Last week too, in the penultimate round of the Canadian Open, I had
another instructive King and Pawn ending.

White: A.J.Miles Black:

T.O'Donnell
The position is, of course drawn,
but the tournament was a two-horse
race between myself and Larry
Christiansen (in the end we tied on
9/10) and I had to try to squeeze
everything. I was a little surprised,
and quite pleased when my
opponent played 1...b4. I had
concluded that if he simply
oscillated his king between d5 and
c5 there was nothing that I could do. Afterwards I asked my opponent
why he did not do this. He replied that he was afraid of 1...Kc5 2.a3
followed by b4. This makes sense after, say, 2...a4 3.b4 Kd5 4.c4 bc
5.Kc3 and now either 5...e4 6.g3, or 5...f4 6.f3 and black runs out of
moves. But the move a3 critically weakens the c4 square, so black can
start with 2...e4! 3.Ke3 and only now 3...a4, and the black king
penetrates decisively. If 4.ba ba 5.Kd2 f4, or 4.c4 Kd6 (or 4...bc 5.ba c3
6.g3 Kc4 7.a5 Kb3! 8.a6 c2 winning) 5.cb ab 6.Kd4 f4 and the split
pawns are decisive.
Back at the game I began to get a little optimistic. It is true that 2. c4
gets nowhere when black keeps his king close to c5, but I began to see
ways to use my previously useless a pawn, and played
2.Kc2 and on the natural 2...Ke4 I lashed out with 3.cb ab 4.a4 ba 5.b4

Now white has at last put his

queenside majority to some use.
The plan is simply to take the b
pawn and return to the kingside.
In the meantime black cannot
easily create a passed pawn of
his own, as the white h-pawn still
dominates the opposing g- and
h-pawns. With two moves to the
time control black reasonably
played 5...Kd4
Actually not absolutely the most
incisive, but good enough. 6.Kb3 e4 A good choice 7...f4 was

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worse. I now played the forced 7.g3

and we both stopped to assess

the situation. To my annoyance I
saw that black had a defence. But
after ten minutes I was surprised
and pleased to see 7...f4 8.gf
Kd3 and happily continued 9.b5
Ke2 10.b6 Here 10.f5 would
shorten the process by a few
moves, but there is no hurry.
10...Kf2 11.b7 e3 12.b8(Q) e2
13.Qb6 Kf1 14 Qb5 Kf2 15.Qc5
Kf1 16.Qc4 Kf2 17.Qd4 Kf1
18.Qd3 Kf2 19.Qd2 and black
resigned, seeing that 19...Kf1 is met by 20.f5 gf 21 Qf4 and the
queen mops up the black pawns. It is interesting to note that, had the
black Pg6 been on f5 then there is no win for white, as he has no
access to the f4 square.
Back at the previous diagram, though, what had I seen? Well, black
can simply play 7...Kd5! getting within the square of g8, so that after
8.Ka3 (there is nothing else)g5! sets up a passed pawn of his own
9.hg f4 10.fg h4 11.g6 Ke6 12.g7 Kf7 13.b5 h3 14.b6 h2 15.b7
h1(Q) 16.g8(Q) Kg8 17 b8(Q) and the extra white pawn is of very
little use.

Copyright 2001 Tony Miles. All rights reserved.

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