Computer Challenge 01

by Karsten Müller
4/25/2023 – Our "Iniyan Challenge" saw a lot of readers getting interested, and we received some excellent analysis from them. Today we want to give you a Computer Challenge. It is a position in which your chess engines will not give you the solution if you ask them — even if you run them for a very long time. You have to come up with the logic and strategy of the solution yourself, and then confirm everything with the help of the computer. Can you do that?
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Here's the position, which actually occurred in a high-level game:

Computer Challenge
White to play and win

To get a feel for the problems that White is faced with, you can try winning the game from the above position. You can move the white pieces and the diagram will defend for Black.

1.Nxb6+? does not win, as you will quickly see. After 1...cxb6 the position is completely locked and White would have to sacrifice his queen to open it up.

How about using the h3 square for the queen to penetrate? 2.h4!? But Black plays 2...gxh4 and then 3...h3 to lock up the position. You may consider sacrificing the queen on a5, but Black can easily block the passed b-pawn and hold the draw. So what to do?

You can analyse the position comprehensively in the following replay window:

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45...Qb6! 46.Nxb6+ and draw, as any human will quickly recognise. cxb6 47.h4 White would like to use the h3 square for his queen to penetrate the other side of the board. gxh4 48.Qd2 h3! With this sacrifice Black will lock up the position. 49.gxh3 h4 and now, as you can see, there is no way the white queen can move to the black half of the board. 50.Kb3 Kb7 51.Ka4 White probably considered sacrificing the queen on a5, but Black can easily block the passed b-pawn and hold the draw. Ka7 52.Qg2 He worked out that the sacrifice doesn't work. Kb7 53.Qb2 Ka7 54.Qc2 Kb7 55.Qc3 Ka7 ½–½
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Computer challenge 01--½–½ White to play and win

Here you can start the engine (fan icon) and enter variations. If you come up with a solution, you can download the full analysis you have done (disk icon below the notation) as a PGN file. You can also simply download the PGN as is and use your favourite engine to search for the solution.

Please submit your analysis in PGN to puzzle2@chessbase.com. The subject should be "Computer Challenge 01". Please give your name and your place of residence!

In over 4 hours in front of the camera, Karsten Müller presents to you sensations from the world of endgames - partly reaching far beyond standard techniques and rules of thumb - and rounds off with some cases of with own examples.

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Karsten Müller is considered to be one of the greatest endgame experts in the world. His books on the endgame - among them "Fundamentals of Chess Endings", co-authored with Frank Lamprecht, that helped to improve Magnus Carlsen's endgame knowledge - and his endgame columns for the ChessCafe website and the ChessBase Magazine helped to establish and to confirm this reputation. Karsten's Fritztrainer DVDs on the endgame are bestsellers. The mathematician with a PhD lives in Hamburg, and for more than 25 years he has been scoring points for the Hamburger Schachklub (HSK) in the Bundesliga.

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