Johnson's Position revisited!

[Richard Pask]

Black: man on 4, kings on 26 and 27; White; kings on 11, 18 and 19

WTP and win: ... 11-16; 27-31 18-23; 26-30 16-12; 30-25 and now 19-24!, rather than the pp 19-16, cuts out about 30 moves. Continue: 25-21 12-16; 21-17 23-18; 17-13 18-14; 31-26 16-11; 26-23 11-7; 4-8 7-10; 8-11 24-20; 23-19 10-6; 19-23 6-1; 23-19 14-9; 13-6 1-10; 19-23 20-24. White wins.

For all of this credit WCC.

Of course, having already mastered this situation, players may prefer to stay with the regular route, but interesting nonetheless.

[chipschap]

It's interesting that the KingsRow 10-piece endgame database has the following evaluations: 19-24 (15), 19-15 (19), 12-16 (19), 19-16 (19) ; all four of them are wins, with 19-24 supposedly best.

Computers are interesting tools indeed and give us much insight into the game. But nothing compares with the excitement of over the board play between two skilled humans.

[Richard Pask]

I'm afraid I was guilty of not consulting Duffy's brilliant Standard Positions before I posted: there the 19-24 move is covered in detail, with the comment, 'A favourite of [John] Howe's for 40 years.' (!)

The bigger issue is that of the best continuation to promote: sometimes the quickest is not necessarily the easiest for a human to master; sometimes, as here, it cuts out play which you need to know anyway from other positions, Therefore, I've decided to stick to 19-16 anyway.