Distant Opposition - finding endgame study by Grigorieff

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Simon Waters - 01 Jul 2007 15:23 GMT

In my copy of "Basic Chess Endings" by Reuben Fine he refers to a puzzle
(No 53c) by Grigorieff demonstrating the use of the "distant opposition".

RF gives (in descriptive notation of course);

White: K at KB8 P's at QKt4 and KR4
Black: K at Q8 P's at QKt4 and KR4

Analysis starts with White K-K7, black replies K-K8.

After looking at the position I think the starting position of the Kings
has been transposed, and he meant White K at Q8 and Black K at KB8, when
the analysis given makes sense to me.

Does anyone has the original position by Grigorieff to hand? I assume
this is "Nikolai Dmitriyevich Grigoriev" (as he liked his King and Pawn
endgames).

In particular I not only want to check what the original position was,
but how the "question" was initially posed.

I now realise how far sighted Nimzowitsch was in giving a preferred form
of his name in the Latin alphabet.

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Clifford Stern - 02 Jul 2007 08:54 GMT

>In my copy of "Basic Chess Endings" by Reuben Fine he refers to a puzzle
>(No 53c) by Grigorieff demonstrating the use of the "distant opposition".
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
>I now realise how far sighted Nimzowitsch was in giving a preferred form
>of his name in the Latin alphabet.

I found a similar position by the composer in Lehr- und Handbuch der
Endspiele by Andre Cheron, diagram 719. The differences are that the
Black king is at e1 and the White king is at e8. Therefore, there was no
transposition error in BCE. The stipulation states that whoever moves
first, wins.

Clifford Stern
ax810@lafn.org

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Simon Waters - 02 Jul 2007 19:10 GMT

> I found a similar position by the composer in Lehr- und Handbuch der
> Endspiele by Andre Cheron, diagram 719. The differences are that the
> Black king is at e1 and the White king is at e8. Therefore, there was no
> transposition error in BCE. The stipulation states that whoever moves
> first, wins.

Thanks, but in BCE it is Kf8 and Kd1 at the start, with 1. Ke7 Ke1 given
as the first moves. The point of the analysis being that by Kd1e1 Black
gets the distant opposition, forces white to commit to one side, and thus
he draws by going the other way.

But if the Black King starts at d1 (as in BCE) it can capture the Knights
pawn directly marching towards b3 (and occupying a4 if needed). If it
starts f1 it has no way to capture the h pawn in a similar fashion as it
would need an extra file (occupy "i4" ?).

Or am I missing something?

What does Cheron give as the "question"/"solution"?

I'm assuming he is giving it as white to play and win, but the win is to
use the opposition - i.e. march up the board and force black to pick a
side first, thus gaining a couple of tempi to queen the pawn over a
straight race to opposite sides from the initial position.

I only need this for training purposes - I thought it was a good example
of distant opposition at work with few distractions, apart from the
initial position seeming to offer a simple draw for black in BCE.

Cheron has at least the symmetry of the player to move wins, but only by
using the opposition - which is a good example of the point that you only
worry about the distant opposition in position where the more thing to
try don't quite work.

I'm assuming Grigorieff's puzzle is how does Black draw after Ke7..

Anyway I now how enough to be teaching folks - even if I'm not 100% sure
what the Grigorieff puzzle was.

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Chess Forum / Analysis / July 2007

Distant Opposition - finding endgame study by Grigorieff