Thing I don't understand in Capablanca's Chess fundamentals

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LetItLib

Hi, I'm working with Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals book and there's a thing I can't explain. In the following position, he says : White cannot win with f5 because Black's best move would be g6 draw. But as I worked it out with the computer I found that White would eventually win playing this. Could someone explain it to me ? Thanks

Alramech
LetItLib wrote:

Hi, I'm working with Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals book and there's a thing I can't explain. In the following position, he says : White cannot win with f5 because Black's best move would be g6 draw. But as I worked it out with the computer I found that White would eventually win playing this. Could someone explain it to me ? Thanks

Apparently there is some fun history with this position in the book!  It does seem clear that White is still winning with f5 so I tried to Google possible errors in Capablanca's book.  This reddit thread provided a citation to someone who researched this infamous "White can't win" statement:  https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/pawnending.html

 

The conclusion:  It was a typo!  From the chesshistory citation above: "...the change (made in the mid-1930s US edition):  [The word] ‘can’ was altered to ‘can’t’. Why and by whom?"

LetItLib

Thanks for these explanations. I see with the chesshistory article that I'm not the first one to question this exemple. But still I'm astonished to see the mistake in recent books as it seems to have been discussed since 1949.

Pawnerai

My edition from Everyman Chess is correct.

LetItLib

Maybe english edtions got finally the mistake corrected. French ones will be next I hope.