The new position will occur each SUNDAY and I will always be pleased to receive POSITIVE feedback about the positions and the analysis and I will try to acknowledge these where relevant.
Erich Zepler (1898-1980) was a German Jew who came to England in 1935. He was really a problemist but he did compose a number of fine endgame studies. In 1957 he was awarded the title of International Judge of Composition by FIDE and in 1973 became an International Master of Chess Composition. He was an expert in the field of Electronics and in 1949 he became professor of this new emerging science at Southhampton University.
The choice is taking on g6 or pushing the pawn to f6. Does it really matter? White has a "lost" game. Black can sacrifice his Rook for Whites passed pawn and then he will win with his own pawns against the enemy Rook. He has one last hope and that is playing for stalemate. He seeks to have no legal move available to play. In this situation the normal rules of common sense chess are reversed. White's moves can only be understood in the light of this new strategy.
Stalemate is an important defensive device when trying to save a "lost" position. A player should never resign an ending until he has considered the possibility of this defence. It is a popular theme in many endgame compositions. Iuri Akobia, a television engineer from Georgia, has produced the multi-volume World Anthology of Chess Studies, and his Volume I contains over 4232 Studies with Stalemate!! Despite this, it is still rare in OTB encounters. As one would expect, the way a stalemate arises in a game is often quite different to that in a study. Here, it is a device for saving a "lost" game with perfect play for both colours but in OTB play the defending player encourages his opponent to make a number of inaccurate moves which lead him unsuspectingly into the stalemate trap.
Some of the best players in the world have fallen for this insidious ploy: Smyslov in a won Rook and pawn ending against Bernstein in 1946 walked into a stalemate trap and so did Schlechter against Wolf at Nurenburg in 1906. Reshevsky seemed to have made a habit of it!! There is that famous example in the Zurich Candidates tournament in 1953 when he was playing Geller; (8/8/5R2/5p1k/5P1P/r5P1/5K2/8) Black's King has no moves after 53... Rf3+ 54 Kxf3=, and if 54.Kg2 the g-pawn will fall and the game is drawn.
The stalemate trap seems to happen in endings where the player with the advantage becomes over confident and loses his concentration. So the moral is to stay alert to the very end; looking for the stalemate if defending, and being especially vigilant when your opponent plays on in a "lost" position.
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