(282) The Réti study of Rook against a Pawn.

On October 22nd 2015 I found myself studying Reti´s famous study: 
This was from page 14 of Dvoretsky and Yusupov´s Technique for the Tournament Player.

White wins with 1 Rd1!! Kd5 2 Kd7! and thus catches the pawn.

Although over previous decades I had many, many times seen this thing, it was only that evening that I was intrigued enough to figure out precisely just WHY 1 Rd1! is the, clever, way to win.
(After all, as so many indolent players think: how often do you truly require arcane endgame knowledge?)
And in over thirty-one years as a Grandmaster I could not recall ever coming across an instance of that theme.

The very next evening I looked at Alex Baburin´s Chess Today newspaper in my e mail box and saw this -
Brodowski (2452) Vs Leniart,(2480) European Universities Championship, Yerevan, 2015.

They reached this ending -


Here black chose 80...Kg2? and drew after 81 Kg4! "Mutual zugzwang" 81...Kf2 82 Kf4! Rf8+ 83 Ke5, etc.

As Baburin commented - ""He had to play 80...Kf2! 81 Kg4 Kg2 - this idea was used in one of Reti´s studies."

Well waddyaknow...?!





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