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 game score 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 was 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 manoeuvre 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, published the first position from an old French manuscript by "Chapais" (probably a pseudonym). This truly remarkable manuscript of an endgame book Essais Analytiques sur les Echecs was probably completed in 1777 by the mathematician Gaspard Monge. Last year, Herbert Bastian published the book Chapais – Das revolutionäre Schachmanuskript von Gaspard Monge (Berlin, 2024), presenting the whole content of the MS.
One remarkable discovery is that "our position" was already in the Chapais MS! Here's 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 a draw or a stalemate. It can be observed that White's preceding king march was steered 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.
Giambattista Lolli, in his book Osservazioni teorico-pratiche sopra il giuoco degli scacchi (Bologna, 1763) pp. 489-499, has a lengthy analysis of the following position:
He concludes that White wins whoever is on move. White has two winning methods.
The first is a nice breakthrough: 1. Kd5 Kd7 2. f6! gxf6 3. g6! hxg6 4. h6! +-
The second method starts with the pawn push 1. g6.
He is also analyzing the two other possible pawn pushes, which lead only to a draw: 1. h6? and 1. f6?.
1. h6? is easy to prove to be a draw, but for 1. f6? "it is necessary to act with great circumspection, as one must sometimes handle the King contrary to the rules suggested for King against King and Pawn, because here both Kings have an extra Rook's Pawn that they can move..."
After the moves 1. f6+? gxf6+ 2. gxf6+ Kf7 3. Kf5, he reaches the following position:
Now, black has to be very careful. The natural retreat 3... Kf8? loses after 4. Ke6 Ke8 5. f7+! Kf8 6. Kf6, and there is no stalemate. One must choose 3... Ke8! (or 3... Kg8!) to draw. Then 4. Ke6 Kf8 5. f7 h6 6. Kf6 is a stalemate.
He also proves that 3... h6?, which leads to a mirrored Fahrni-Alapin Position, loses.
His main line is 4. Ke5 Kf8 The black King "goes to f8 to opportunely face the opponent's King if he comes to e6, but White disappoints him with a subtle move like this:" 5. Kf4! Kg8 6. Ke4! "White does not go with the King to e5, because Black would go with the King to f8; nor does he go to f5, because Black would go to f7, then to his own house as above, and so the game would be a draw; But he withdraws the King to e4 to gain the move."6... Kf8 Black doesn't know what to do. 7. Ke5 Ke8 8. Ke6 Kf8 9. f7 Kg7 10. Ke7 Kh7 11. Kf6 This leads to a quicker checkmate than the move chosen by Chapais. (11. f8=Q? stalemate) 11... Kh8 12. f8=Q+ Kh7 13. Qg7#
Fahrni's book contains a similar endgame to Lolli's position, so there is a high chance that he was familiar with Lolli's analysis. Maybe he just made two nice studies out of this messy position. Or maybe there was a real game Fahrni-Alapin.
H. Fahrni
Das Endspiel im Schach
1917
White wins
A useful link about this topic: www.chesshistory.com
White wins
White wins
mutual zugzwang
White wins
