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Photo from The World’s Best Sacristan™
Many thanks to my donors today. I did get an email bounced back from my thank you notes. If you regularly donate and haven’t heard from me, it’s not because I haven’t tried.
Try this one…
White to move. White’s in serious trouble, so think fast!
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Meanwhile, in St. Louis the Sinquefield Cup is underway, the last of the Grand Chess Tour. This is classical: 90 for 40 moves, then 30 plus 30 sec increment. 1st place $100K. 2nd $65K. Over the whole tour Fabiano Caruana is leading. Yesterday, however, all games were drawn. Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Anish Giri were a move short of checkmating each other.
Hanging out before the day’s action are Nepo (2771), Anish (2752) and my guy Wesley So (2752). These guys have been playing against each other for years and they know each other well.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2734) and Levon Aronian (2727). They both usually appear to have just rolled out of bed having slept in their clothes, though Levon mostly sports flashy shirts. This is definitely no longer the days of suits and ties… which they should reclaim!
Photos from chess.com
Action continues today with Round 2.
The St. Louis Chess Club was founded by entrepreneur Rex Sinquefield, 79, who has had quite a life. He is a devout Catholic and serves on the Cathedral’s board. Part of his childhood was spent in a Catholic orphanage. He was in seminary for a while in St. Louis, served in the Army, and majored in business at St. Louis University and University of Chicago. As a philanthropist he funded the School of Music at U of Missouri and has been a director of the St. Vincent Home for Children along with many other local cultural concerns. The Chess Campus is spectacular. He was a strong player who thinks that chess can help transform young people. I’ve actually thought about uprooting and moving to the Central West End of St. Louis. Maybe in better times.
Speaking of moving…
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1. Kg3 a2
2. Kh4 a1-> Q
3. g3 . . .
Unfortunately, black’s queen is blocked by the king on d4. The queen would like to go to h8, which would be checkmate, but cannot. So after an intermediate move (such as Qa8), the game is a stalemate, and white gets the draw.
Other sets of moves from black (such as Kd3 . . . a2 . . . a1->Q) has the same result. White has no legal moves, and the game is a stalemate.
I thought for while there that a pawn run up the right side might work… but alas, stalemate is the way to go, easy to make happen Kg3 -> Kh4 -> g3. Nice frozen fortress!
I see no way to win.
But to force a draw,
1. K to g3, P to a2
2. K to h4, p to a1 Queen
3. P to g3, any move
4. No moves possible
1. Kg3 black any move
2. Kh4 black any move
3. g3
Sepppuuuukkkkuuuuuuu
1. Kg3 whatever
2. Kh4 whatever
3. g3 whatever
stalemate