Interesting how in this "simple" position you have to play just the right moves, or you get a draw.

This was great, but kind of depressing in making me realize how terrible my endgames are.

In other words: Never leave your king on A1.

Joke aside, cool study. Thanks for sharing.

There is actually another twist.  At the beginning, after Kb5, black can pull his rook back to d2 and if white queens, then black can almost keep the king boxed in with checks on a2 and b2.  This would draw if the king were on b1 instead of a1.  But, with the black king on a1, the white king can zig-zag down to reach c3 where the checks run out.

When I first saw this I figured everyone would consider it a win for White after getting his king down to c1 but then I saw black's move to rd4 followed by rc4ch, qxc4 and stalemate - it never once crossed my mind to promote to a rook which prevents the stalemate and threatens checkmate -  a great lesson in thinking outside the box!

You weren't lying, this is truly fascinating. I started playing chess on 5th May 2021 and I am in love. So much to explore, to seek to understand. Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

Lol, i saw the position and immediately thought “there’s no way this is not a draw”…. You learn something every day hahah

Nice. I met this problem about 52 years ago...

A good example of how rich the game of chess can be. Stockfish 14, after evaluating a mere 2 BILLION moves, has a forced mate in 25, lol!

This is my favorite composition of all time.  Crazy how much tactics there can be with so few pieces.

Minor promotion, major result! Remember that the King has enormous value in the endings.

the most amazing thing with this composition is that the author created it as a 'fancy sequence of moves' leading to the draw after the stalemate. and it was another person who had the idea of promoting to a rook. it is the only case in the history of composition that I have heard such a story

The Barbier-Saavedra position! There is an interesting history to this problem. Barbier first published this in a Glasgow newspaper: He was an accomplished chess problemist. There he said it was a draw due to the stalemate trick at the end. Barbier then went to France on holiday (where he was from originally) where he died after a short illness. A Spanish priest called Saavedra, who was also living in Glasgow at the time, then sent in his revised solution to this problem with the rook promotion. Saavedra was far from a strong player, yet found the solution to this hard endgame!

I could understand your explanation even though I'm not good at English!
Thanks for your brilliant tip and easy-to-understand pronunciation!

Imagine how many 7 minute videos you'd need to analyze your endgame when a random pawn move or random king move is a "Blunder!" according to the engine and you're just like "wdym computer? It's just some random move cuz I'm low on time"

The stalemate threat was sixk

These are my favorite kinds of videos! Thanks for sharing!

That is actually amazing.  The only time I've seen an under-promotion for a good reason.  Every time I've ever  promoted under a q it's not been necessary, I just did it for style.  This study it's essential.  It's very interesting because the stalemate would have got me without doubt....it won't now thanks to this video. Thanks

Brilliant!
This is why I like long time controls in chess. It allows you to calculate your opponent's next moves and find clever solutions, and that's what I enjoy most. No one has time to calculate all of these positions in blitz or bullet, so this beautiful puzzle would end in stalemate on one of the first moves, which isn't as exciting.
Thank you, NM Nelson!

Now that I'm thinking about it. You should make your top five or top 10 chess movies and or book lists Nelson.