What would you play?

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wango

 I had this position in a game at my club recently.  I believe that the winning move for black is Ne4.  What do you folks think?

joshgregory7

all u have to do is get the knight to attack f4. 

likesforests

Sure. 1...Ne4 2.hxg6 hxg6 4.Kxa7. The knight wants to win f4, but what route to take? 4...Nf3?! 5.Bf1 and Black's made no progress. Instead, 4...Ng3! 5.Ka6 Nh5 wins swiftly.

p-worry

king to d4 to attack the pawns on -e4 -g5

jaronkovich

move the king to d4 and get in to his pawns

pushwood

Why do you ask? Did you play/not play this? Did you win/lose with/without it?

TonightOnly

Right, 2.Bxf5 needs to be stopped, and is the reason that 1...d4 is out of the window right away. 1...Na2 looks good at first as well, but 2.c3 is a good enough answer, since white is immune to 2...Nxc3. This means that 1...Ne4 is the only move, after which either the knight or the King can easily round up the kingside pawns.

This turns out to be an instructive endgame. I would be willing to bet that even most intermediate players are not used to piece sacrifices in the endgame. If other moves for black seemed plausible, my advice would be to play through the lines again until it seems obvious how quickly 2.Bxf5 wins for white.

o-blade-o

i'm confused ... + I can't tell you

wango

D'oh.  Forgot I posted this here.

Yes I won this game but my opponent let me promote a pawn in the endgame in time trouble.  The way I figured it, after my move it is a draw.  After the move to be played it's a win for black, although even then it's still many moves off.

I played Kd4.  My opponent sac'c his bishop and I though I could catch the pawn after 38. Bxf5, gxf5  39. g6, hxg6...however he doestn' have to recapture, and instead played 39...h6, now the queening square is black which means it will take my N 3 moves to block it, which I don't have. 

On the plus side black has two connected passers and a N.  With proper play (read Fritz) it comes out to a draw. 

I just wanted to know if I was the only one who missed the Bishop Sac for a pawn promotion.

Ne4 is the winner by the way.