Quote:
Originally Posted by Superfraggle
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This was an intense game. 72UCI actually offered me a draw on about move 34, and it was a reasonable offer at the time I thought… except that having dropped 2 games to Superfraggle, I knew that a draw would eliminate me from contention.
Then, a few moves later I offered a draw, and 72UCI declined. I don’t remember the move, but I did check stockfish after and he/she was right to decline as by then I had played a bit inaccurately in the endgame and white was winning.
That brought us to the last position, when 72UCI offered a draw again, probably realizing that my king was in time to stop the passed pawn and white probably can’t play for a win after the rooks are traded. I thought about it for a while, and eventually concluded that it would be drawn after his king captured black’s a pawn.
According to stockfish I could have played for a win but it would have required extreme accuracy. The winning idea — apparently — is not to race your king toward the g and h pawns but to move it toward the white king and try to trap it on the edge of the board. Then stockfish finds a way to win, but like…. 20 moves later. I would not have found that idea—I was calculating whether the king could make it to the other side first and support the pawns. But that idea actually doesn’t work because black’s king makes it back in time and then the draw is basically inevitable.
72UCI is tough.