ChessPub Forum - The Tarrasch in Black and White

Ametanoitos God Member Offline The road to success is under construction Posts: 1429 Location: Patras Joined: 01/04/05	Re: The Tarrasch in Black and White Reply #177 - 04/13/10 at 13:17:11	Post Tools	Print Post
	I mentioned two plans for White to play for a win (with White's pawn on h5 and with Black's pawn on h5). Please inform me about Black's defensive plan. It's always good to learn new things.


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Smyslov_Fan God Member Correspondence fan Offline Progress depends on the unreasonable man. ~GBS Posts: 6902 Joined: 06/15/05	Re: The Tarrasch in Black and White Reply #176 - 04/13/10 at 13:10:39	Post Tools	Print Post
	The 4-3 endgame with pawns on the same flank is indeed objectively drawn. But I wouldn't describe at as "dead drawn". I've looked at a number of games with our pawn structure and found a few cases where the weaker side lost. But there was also a game (Spassky-Karpov perhaps?) where the players agreed to a draw almost as soon as the position was reached. I'll try to find the reference to that game. I found Speelman's comment in Batsford Chess Endings particularly enlightening: "This ending is normally a draw unless there is a good reason why not." (p. 284) I think that's probably true of every ending!


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Ametanoitos God Member Offline The road to success is under construction Posts: 1429 Location: Patras Joined: 01/04/05	Re: The Tarrasch in Black and White Reply #175 - 04/13/10 at 09:02:53	Post Tools	Print Post
	No winning chances? his is obviously inaccurate. Even with the h+g+f pawns against h+g pawns White has winning chances and the defending side has to keep a cool head in one or two critical moments. GM Grivas in his books has shown many examples where he won these endings against masters even if they are obviously a draw. The endgame with e+f+g pawns against f+h pawns is a win as showed by Capablanca. In our endgame White cannot create a pasted pawn (so easy) but can penetrate at g6 and this may be more significant. Two endgame experts in my club (i concider them to be) failed to draw this against me (a player with medium or low endgame technique ). After g4!+f3+h4-h5 Black can only sacrifice his f pawn with f5 and try to hold this miserable ending where there are only few positions that can be drawn here. Even if Black achieves h5 (not allowing g4!) after h4-f3 Rook at the 4rth rank+King at the f4 and finaly the push g4 we conluded that White has serious winning chances at least in practice, even though Blacks drawing chances are much higher here. We had a similar discussion some months back when i proposed a systems against the Bc4-system (named the "Ametanoitos" variation by me. I have regreted that!) where in a sub-variation Black's best defend was to achieve a 4vs3 at the same side single Rook ending. I had the strong opinion that this is drawn, so Black can be satisfied if he can achieve this ending from the opening ( ) because he can claim equality. In fact this opinion was stupid because even if this ending is objectively drawnmany many legendary players have lost it! So, this is a real headache and not a desirable situation for the Black player to play a position with zero winning chances and many losing chances even if the objective truth is a draw. After all Kramnik once said (and also Kasparov before him i think) that "Chess is a draw". I think he is right but this doesn't make us abandon chess and start playing Go (even if Go is also a draw!)


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kylemeister God Member Offline Posts: 4989 Location: USA Joined: 10/24/05	Re: The Tarrasch in Black and White Reply #174 - 04/13/10 at 03:08:46	Post Tools	Print Post
	I would be utterly stunned if such an ending is winning. It was evidently Reuben Fine's view (in "Basic Chess Endings") that it offers "no winning chances at all."


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Ametanoitos God Member Offline The road to success is under construction Posts: 1429 Location: Patras Joined: 01/04/05	Re: The Tarrasch in Black and White Reply #173 - 04/13/10 at 01:05:40	Post Tools	Print Post
	After analysing the position you refer to, i have the strong impression that White can force a win! At least none of my pretty strong team-mates managed to get a draw in our analysis the past night at the club, althought we confirmed that these endings have drawing chances. Even if someone convices me that this ending is a theoritical draw, then after the analysis i have done i'm pretty sure i will make anyone suffer to draw it! I'm sure that with the rook on the fifth rank the position is won. The plan g4-h4-h5 and the slow penetration at g6 is suprising difficult to counter. Maybe you know more in these endings than i do, and i am not trying to be smart here, but i think that at least the practical chances for White to win this (i'd say about 70%) can make me avoid this opening variation all together! If you have found the way for White to force this please make me know! For now i choose 32.Ra4 (and thank you for giving me the chance to analyse this very interesting ending! )


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Smyslov_Fan God Member Correspondence fan Offline Progress depends on the unreasonable man. ~GBS Posts: 6902 Joined: 06/15/05	Re: The Tarrasch in Black and White Reply #172 - 04/09/10 at 15:22:44	Post Tools	Print Post
	31.... Rd5 I'm heading for a position where White wins a pawn, but we're only left with one rook each and you have pawns on f2,g3,h2 while I have pawns on f7 and h7. I'm pretty sure such a position is dead drawn.


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Ametanoitos God Member Offline The road to success is under construction Posts: 1429 Location: Patras Joined: 01/04/05	Re: The Tarrasch in Black and White Reply #171 - 04/09/10 at 15:12:23	Post Tools	Print Post
	ΟΚ then...it's 30.Rxc6+ and if 30...Kg7 31.axb3


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Smyslov_Fan God Member Correspondence fan Offline Progress depends on the unreasonable man. ~GBS Posts: 6902 Joined: 06/15/05	Re: The Tarrasch in Black and White Reply #170 - 04/08/10 at 04:19:26	Post Tools	Print Post
	Uggh. Yes, I meant cb3. My typos and wrong positions in this thread are really embarrassing. I'd change the original post, but then MNb's comment would look weird. Oh well, my mistakes live on.


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MNb God Member Offline Rudolf Spielmann forever Posts: 10778 Location: Moengo Joined: 01/05/04 Gender:	Re: The Tarrasch in Black and White Reply #169 - 04/08/10 at 02:04:02	Post Tools	Print Post
	I suppose you mean 29...cxb3. I am glad to notice I am not the only one who produces typos like that.

	The book had the effect good books usually have: it made the stupids more stupid, the intelligent more intelligent and the other thousands of readers remained unchanged. GC Lichtenberg
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Smyslov_Fan God Member Correspondence fan Offline Progress depends on the unreasonable man. ~GBS Posts: 6902 Joined: 06/15/05	Re: The Tarrasch in Black and White Reply #168 - 04/08/10 at 01:20:25	Post Tools	Print Post
	Sorry it took so long for me to get back to this position, my chess time was busy with correspondence games. I'll go ahead and play 27...Bc1 and if 28.Rf3 Bf4 29.Rf4 bc3 The variation is still fairly forcing on move 29, but around move 33, it becomes more fuzzy. I know there are many permutations in the double rook ending, but I think we will soon agree about the winning chances one way or another. (My guess is around move 40 we'll be able to agree whether there are any practical chances in the variation.)


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Smyslov_Fan

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Re: The Tarrasch in Black and White
Reply #167 - 04/04/10 at 19:53:37

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Amet,

I've taken a closer look at the position

I thought that Black had two ways to maintain equality here, but missed the power of White's temporary pawn sac. White does seem to keep a small advantage.

I still need a little more time to decide which way is best. I think I may have found a simple drawing line in the double rook ending, but I need to be sure.

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Holbox Senior Member Offline Saigón Café Posts: 369 Joined: 02/08/05	Re: The Tarrasch in Black and White Reply #166 - 04/04/10 at 07:19:56	Post Tools	Print Post
	Ametanoitos wrote on 04/01/10 at 06:47:42: My chess friends, i have to tell you my "secret". All this time i share with you my interest of the Tarrasch defence is because i write a book on it! The idea was to do some sort of update of the Aagaard book, recommending the Tarrasch as the main defence to 1.d4 and also give recommendations for the other first moves such as 1.c4, 1.Nf3, 1b4! etc...I have done much more work on the popular at club level "d pawn openings" such as the London, the Colle etc and i have tried to study in depth systems like the KIA or the Reti. So, this work has much more details than the Aagaard's book on these lines. It offers only the ...c4 main line and not the ...cxd4, and all these make it very different than the original Aagaard work. My idea was also to offer somekind of "quick repertoire" in the French Defence (which suits the Tarrasch philoshofy well, for example 3.Nd2 c5! or IQP variations against the exch variations and so on) so as to have a complete repertoire book! The book will be finished at the start of June and will be in Greek, so it would be very difficult for you to read it but i can provide you with every variation you like to ask because i have taken advantage of your kind help and sincere discussions on this foroum and because this is just my character as a person! Now, as for the Avrukh's recommendation. I think it is one of the times we can say "both sides are happy", this means that White can be happy because he can claim a tiny tiny theoritical edge but Black can also be happy because he has free piece play and many chances to punish inaccurancies by White. In "my book" i offer Watson's recommended improvements along with an Aagaard's line which is 12...Re8 13.Nc5 Bxc5 14.Bxc5 Qd7!? 15.Re1 Rac8 16.Bd4 Ne4= and i add a comment of mine which is: if 16.Nd4 b6 17.Ba3 Nxd4 18.Qxd4 Rxe2. Everything in Chess has it's Yin and Yan side. Avrukh's line is good because it is easy to memorise and can bring a slight theoritical edge but OTB there are much many things that can go wrong and lose quickly and you have to play the resulting positions with a great amount of high level technique agains a fairly strong opponent to bring the win home. You have to chose.... I'm currently studying Wojo's book recommendation against the Tarrasch and this also seems to be a nice practical weapon, even though Black has again much more counterplay than the main lines with Bg5+...c4 and my favourite ...h6. I hope that your effort is rewared by the interest of any publisher with a wider audience.

	"Ladran, luego cabalgamos", NN
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Smyslov_Fan God Member Correspondence fan Offline Progress depends on the unreasonable man. ~GBS Posts: 6902 Joined: 06/15/05	Re: The Tarrasch in Black and White Reply #165 - 04/02/10 at 19:46:02	Post Tools	Print Post
	Errm, there was only one other legal move apart from 27.Kg2 and that was to drop the rook. But yes, I should have put it down as a conditional move. But I'm still not convinced that White has much, let alone the forced win you mentioned. I'm just trying to figure out what line you see as close to winning.


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Ametanoitos God Member Offline The road to success is under construction Posts: 1429 Location: Patras Joined: 01/04/05	Re: The Tarrasch in Black and White Reply #164 - 04/02/10 at 17:58:01	Post Tools	Print Post
	It seems that you choose my moves for yourself! Ok, i agree. After 27...Bc1 there is the double rook ending i was talking about. I'll wait for your choice, but i think that you have to admit that Black has to be at least slighty worse here.


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Smyslov_Fan God Member Correspondence fan Offline Progress depends on the unreasonable man. ~GBS Posts: 6902 Joined: 06/15/05	Re: The Tarrasch in Black and White Reply #163 - 04/02/10 at 11:40:34	Post Tools	Print Post
	Black's moves most likely transpose here, so I'll choose the slightly more forcing line: 26...Rd1+ 27.Kg2 I'm going to have to look at Black's options here. While 27...Bc1 isn't a natural choice, it may be good enough to draw. I don't see your double rook ending after 27...cb3.


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