Tuan Minh Tran (2512) - Iyer Akash Pc (2432), Bhubaneswar 2018
In the position above, White has a clearly favourable endgame being an exchange up. Black's position looks rather hopeless, so he played 1...Ke6 in the attempt to confound his opponent. Now the question whether White is immediately winning after Rxd7 a is valid one. In order to understand piece exchanges, you must study endgames. 2.Rxd7 Kxd7 (diagram).
Now the race is on! 3.Kg4 Kc6 4.Kxg5 Kb5 5.f4 Kb4 6.f5 Kxb3 7.f6 c4 8.f7 c3 9.f8=Q c2 (diagram).
To his horror, White realises that he spoiled the endgame, as the final position is just a draw. This is a textbook application of a queen vs. 7th rank pawn endgame, which I discussed here.
Studying endgame is going to save you a lot of full and half points! I talked about it extensively in another post, where I have also recommended some books.
Good endgames work out to everybody!
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