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Tuesday, January 27, 2015

A Really Long Ending

     In the position below white has just captured my a-Pawn leaving himself with a won game. Komodo 8 says he's about a Pawn ahead and when I ran multiple Shootouts with several different engines, with the exception of a draw here and there, white won all the games in somewhere between 60-80 moves. With a time limit of 10 moves in 40 days, it could be a long game. But then messing around, I discovered something.


24...h5
The only way to get the R into play.
25.b5
Clearly, the queening of the P is the only way to go.
25...h4 26.Kxg2
White takes time to capture the P here because he wants to deny black the even the small consolation of having a protected, passed P.
26...Rh5 27.b6
White plays this logical move designed to eventully queen the P; his advantage according to Komodo 8 is about 2.25 Ps...easily winning even if it takes a while (60-80 moves). This is where I made a startling discovery.


27...Bxb6!!
28.Bxb6 Nxb6
29.Qxb6




      White's advantage is now over 3 Pawns, but I ran a whole bunch of Shootouts using the Houdini engine and even though white won the majority of the games, they averaged in length from 130-190 moves with most games being towards the 190 number! 
     At 10 moves in 40 days I don't really know how long the game could last, but it could be long time and maybe the guy will get tired of playing and offer me a draw

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