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Chess: The worst of all your possible moves
Oscar Wilde quipped that when a pessimist is given a choice between two evils, the pessimist chooses both. In this week’s position black’s king is in check and must move. The king has only one bad choice. All other choices lead toward a draw. Please play the pessimist and try to find black’s worst move.
White has a small space advantage. This should not be enough to win, however. With the rooks on the board and an equal number of pawns the game should be drawn. If black king retreats to b7 or d7, black maintains the balance.
The one choice that loses is moving the king to d5. This allows the white rook to slide over to d3, checking black.
After the black king moves out of check to a square adjacent to its rook (e6 is best), white trades rooks. Black’s king finalizes the trade by capturing white’s rook on d6. White then removes the threat to its b4 pawn by taking black’s a5 pawn. Black’s b6 pawn takes white’s pawn on a5. Now white’s king occupies g5.
Black cannot stop the white king from capturing black’s g6 pawn and promoting its h4 pawn. Equally critical, white’s h4 would promote long before black’s king could run and capture white’s a4 pawn and promote its a5 pawn. In short, white wins the pawn race and the game.
The lesson here is that rook-endgames often tend toward a draw. Black’s rook was defending its g6 pawn and preventing white from making any progress. Once the rooks were gone, white converted its space advantage into a win. To paraphrase James Cabell, the optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true and makes the worst of all possible moves.
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