Sunday 22 October 2017

The joy of stalemate

White to play
While at the recent Asian Seniors I enjoyed a lecture by IM Herman van Riemsdijk on 'Stalemate in Chess'. This has inspired me to look for my own examples, as part of an article I hope to include in the upcoming issue of Australian Correspondence Chess Quarterly.
While looking for recent examples, I came across this gem involving GM Dejan Bojkov. In the diagrammed position it looks as though White is in a bit of trouble, as his pieces are pinned or hanging, and any wholesale exchanges just leave Black with a couple of extra pawns.
But Bojkov must have spotted an idea in the position, as he quickly found a way of forcing stalemate. At first glance it looks impossible, as White has a number of pieces that need to be eliminated, but the clue was in the location of the king, and the fact is pawns were immobilised. All he needed was to make sure g1 was covered by Black and he would be OK.
So he started with 65.Nc5 'allowing' Black to threaten mate with a queen sac. 65. ... Rxa2 66.Nxe6 Ra1 So part one of the plan completed. Now on to part 2. 67.Nxg5+ fxg5 (otherwise Nxe4 wins) 68.Rc7+ Kg8 69.Rc8+ Kf7 (the King runs towards the rook) Now White ditches his last two pieces. 70.Rf8+ Kxf8 71.Qf1+ Rxf1 1/2-1/2

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