A-pawn versus Knight

[stevenaaus]

8/5ppp/3k4/2n5/3K4/P5P1/6PP/8 w - - 0 1

I recently played out a draw (as white) from this position.
Can black force a win ?

[zullil]

[D]8/5ppp/3k4/2n5/3K4/P5P1/6PP/8 w - - 0 1

I recently played out a draw (as white) from this position.
Can black force a win ?

[mhalstern]

Post the moves in your game form the position. I'll have some of my engines take a look.

[George Tsavdaris]

[D]8/5ppp/3k4/2n5/3K4/P5P1/6PP/8 w - - 0 1

I recently played out a draw (as white) from this position.
Can black force a win ?

Obviously.
White King is overloaded. He can't guard both his 3 Pawns and his a-Pawn.

[stevenaaus]

White King is overloaded. He can't guard both his 3 Pawns and his a-Pawn.

But black's knight can't win A-pawn on it's own, and if black king goes for A-pawn, i'm not sure black's knight can protect black pawns from white king.

[stevenaaus]

Post the moves in your game form the position. I'll have some of my engines take a look.

Sorry ... no moves. We both started heading for the A pawn, then I (white) headed back to the 3 pawns, and black went with me.
We eventually swapped pawns down to one when black conceded a draw.
Black's knight can't leave the A pawn lest it promotes.

[Terry McCracken]

Post the moves in your game form the position. I'll have some of my engines take a look.

Sorry ... no moves. We both started heading for the A pawn, then I (white) headed back to the 3 pawns, and black went with me.
We eventually swapped pawns down to one when black conceded a draw.
Black's knight can't leave the A pawn lest it promotes.

It's a win for Black, the a-pawn will not Queen ever. Whites King-Side pawns will be picked of.

[OliverUwira]

It's a win for Black, the a-pawn will not Queen ever. Whites King-Side pawns will be picked of.

Of course the pawn will not queen but this is not the point. The point is whether Black can get the a-pawn without letting white's king scavenge the kingside.

From that point of view, a trivial win doesn't present itself. Whenever the black king goes for the a-pawn black will invade via d6 and then the knight will have a hard task holding the kingside together because there are no safe outposts.

A saying of GM Lanka comes to mind: A knight without an outpost is worth not much more than a pawn...

[Terry McCracken]

It's a win for Black, the a-pawn will not Queen ever. Whites King-Side pawns will be picked of.

Of course the pawn will not queen but this is not the point. The point is whether Black can get the a-pawn without letting white's king scavenge the kingside.

From that point of view, a trivial win doesn't present itself. Whenever the black king goes for the a-pawn black will invade via d6 and then the knight will have a hard task holding the kingside together because there are no safe outposts.

A saying of GM Lanka comes to mind: A knight without an outpost is worth not much more than a pawn...

The White King isn't gong to get near the Black pawns....White can't prevent the Black Night from munching his Broken King-Side pawns.

The a-pawn is a momentary distraction, the Black pawns are secure but White's are not. You have to play correctly of course but that Night is a Monster not weak due to the lack of an outpost, that's silly. I'm sure the GM was referring to the Middlegame not a basic ending.

Nights are great pawn destroyers.

I'm sure a good program like Hiracs and a few others where it plays endings relatively well would show the win quickly.

[OliverUwira]

It's a win for Black, the a-pawn will not Queen ever. Whites King-Side pawns will be picked of.

Of course the pawn will not queen but this is not the point. The point is whether Black can get the a-pawn without letting white's king scavenge the kingside.

From that point of view, a trivial win doesn't present itself. Whenever the black king goes for the a-pawn black will invade via d6 and then the knight will have a hard task holding the kingside together because there are no safe outposts.

A saying of GM Lanka comes to mind: A knight without an outpost is worth not much more than a pawn...

The White King isn't gong to get near the Black pawns....White can't prevent the Black Night from munching his Broken King-Side pawns.

The a-pawn is a momentary distraction, the Black pawns are secure but White's are not. You have to play correctly of course but that Night is a Monster not weak due to the lack of an outpost, that's silly. I'm sure the GM was referring to the Middlegame not a basic ending.

Nights are great pawn destroyers.

I'm sure a good program like Hiracs and a few others where it plays endings relatively well would show the win quickly.

Of course he refered to the middle game. I was just exaggerating. What I was saying is that the win is not trivial. An engine will win it, of course, because it can coordinate the black knight's actions 20 ply in advance.

I just blitzed this against Houdini a couple of times. The first thing Houdini did was moving the knight around in order to control either e7 (Nc5-e6-f8-g6) or d6 (Nc5-d7-f6-e8).

Then Black will win because the White king has to around via d7, where it will be exposed to forking counter attacks.