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August 16, 2012

Soap and water: Black to move and win

By Eric Morrow Guest Columnist

Like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, advanced pawn pairs work in step with one another. With this hint in mind please try to find black’s best move and winning plan.

White’s king threatens black’s knight and white has a dangerous passed pawn on c7. Pitted against this is black’s pawn duo on f4 and e2. Together, they are prepared to march step in step onto the 1st rank and promote to a new queen.

Black thus forsakes its knight and pushes the f4 pawn to f3. White can take the knight, but white must stop black’s pawns or lose. White’s rook eyes the pawns, as the rook is paralyzed on the 1st rank. If the rook leaves the rank, black’s e2 pawn promotes. Otherwise, the rook can move anywhere along the 1st rank but it cannot thwart the duo’s advance.

For example, if the rook moves to e1, black’s f3 pawn continues onto f2.

White’s rook can capture the e2 pawn, but the f2 pawn promotes. If the rook moves out of danger to a1 and threatens to move to a8, checking black and supporting the c7 pawn’s promotion on c8, black responds by capturing the dangerous c7 pawn with its knight.

This eliminates white’s threat, as black is prepared to promote either the f2 or e2 pawns on the 8th rank. The rook takes one pawn only to be taken by the other pawn from the 2nd rank, which simultaneously promotes.

White’s best reply to black’s moving its f4 pawn to f3 is to try and roll its own pawn pair on h4 and g4 down the board. But this pair is too slow, too flatfooted to win the race to promotion. A Laurel and Hardy to black’s Batman and Robin.

The lesson here is that among the pantheon of great pairs — Martin and Lewis, Fonteyn and Nureyev, soap and water — the advanced pawn pair should be listed among them.

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