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White to Play

Pete Tamburro on Feb 26, 2024

One of the nice things about king and pawn puzzles is that you can count them out. What does a straight pawn race starting out with 1.f5 tell you?

1.Ke2 a5 2.Kd3 Kb2 3.f5 a4 4.f6 a3 5.f7 a2 6.f8Q a1Q 7.Qb4+ Ka2 7...Kc1 8.Qd2+ Kb1 9.Qc2# 8.Kc2 Qc3+ 9.Kxc3 9.Qxc3 Stalemate! 9...Ka1 10.Qb2# If you had tried the pawn race with 1.f5, you would have noticed the Black pawn reaching h2 right after White queened, which would be a draw as White couldn’t stop the queening save by continually checking.

Send questions and comments to PTamburro@aol.com.

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