The Fahrni-Alapin Position

Who discovered first this famous position with a stunning winning manoeuvre? Fahrni and Alapin? Em. Lasker? Kling and Horwitz? Chapais? I have a new answer to this question!

White wins even on the move!

Fahrni in his book Das Endspiel im Schach (Leipzig, 1917) gave this as a position from a game Fahrni-Alapin without giving more details. In the later chess literature, the game was sometimes referred to as Fahrni-Alapin (1912), but no gamescore ever surfaced.

In 1905, a game between Paul Fiebig and Savielly Tartakower reached this position after black's 54th move:

The game continued with the moves

55. a5 bxa5 56. bxa5 Kd7 57. c5 Kc7 58. c6 Kc8

In this winning position, a disappointing draw followed...

59. Kd6 Kd8 60. Kd5 Kc8 1/2-1/2

Emanuel Lasker gave some lectures in London in 1895, and a book based on those lectures were later published by him: Common Sense in Chess (London-Berlin, 1896). The position from page 108 is familiar:

He gives the following analysis: "White has two chances of winning, the one based on his passed Pawn, the other on the weakness of the black RP. The black K occupies at present a position of advantage in regard to both. This is changed by the following manœuvre:"

1. Kd5 Kc8 2. Kc4 Kd8 3. Kd4 Kc8 4. Kd5 Kc7 5. Kc5

The famous book by Joseph Kling and Bernhard Horwitz, Chess studies or Endings of Games (London, 1851) already contained a similar position:

They gave the following solution:

1. Ke5 Kd8 2. Kd4 Kc8/Ke8) 3. Ke4 Kd8 4. Ke5 Kd7 5. Kd5 and wins. "White, by the mode of play adopted, gains either the opposition and wins with the Queen's Pawn, or else gains the Black Pawn, and then wins easily."

Actually, White doesn't need this fancy manouevre to win in this position, in the 1884 edition of the book, "another useful solution" is given:

1. Ke5 Kd8 2. d7 Kxd7 2... Kc7 3. d8=Q+ +- 3. Kd5 Kc7 4. Ke6 Kc8 5. Kd6 Kb7 6. Kd7 Kb8 7. Kc6 Ka7 8. Kc7 Ka8 9. Kxb6 and wins.

By the way, this solution with a pawn sacrifice wouldn't work in our original position.

Only 10 pages later, the same book contains another study featuring our position.

The solution given by the authors is quite surprising... and wrong.

1. a5 bxa5 2. Kc1 a4 3. Kd1 Kd4 4. Kc2 Kc4 5. a3 "and draws".

1. a5? is actually a blunder, the right drawing move was 1. Kc1.
3... Kd4? is another mistake, 3... c2 wins.
The biggest blunder though is the "and draws" part. After white's 5th move, we have the "Fahrni-Alapin Position" on the board, only with reversed colours!

This position is a win not a draw, and the winning method was given by the authors in their previous composition 10 pages earlier... Of course, Kling and Horwitz were geniuses, but pawn endgames can be so tricky sometimes.

Our time travel doesn't end here. Von der Lasa, in 1862, has published the first position from an old French manuscript by "Chapais" (probably a pseudonym). This trully remarcable manuscript of an endgame book Essais Analytiques sur les Echecs was probably completed in 1777 by the mathematician Gaspard Monge. Last year, Herbert Bastian has published the book Chapais – Das revolutionäre Schachmanuskript von Gaspard Monge (Berlin, 2024) presenting the whole content of the MS.

One remarcable discovery is that "our position" was already in the Chapais MS! Here we give the analysis from the manuscript:

White wins whoever is on move

1. Kd5 Kc8 If 1... Kd8 or 1...Kb8 then the white king goes to d6 already on the second move. 2. Kd4 If 2. Kd6 then 2... Kd8, and the checkmate will be delayed. 2... Kd8 If black returns 2... Kc7, white immediately gets the zugzwang by 3. Kc5, and from there, it penetrates through b6 and wins more quickly; 2... Kb8 is answered by the same 3. Kc4 3. Kc4 Kc8 4. Kd5 Kd8 5. Kd6 Kc8 6. c7 This is the moment when White must advance the pawn. The pawn must reach the penultimate rank without a check to avoid the draw or the stalemate. It can be observed that White's preceding king march was steared towards this goal. 6... Kb7 7. Kd7 Ka7 8. Kd8 Kb7 9. c8=Q+

Our journey is not over yet! Today, I have discovered an even earlier source for this endgame.