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Comment by btilly | Hacker News Reader

I used to live in NYC 20 years ago.

I played a few of the hustlers. Some you will lose to, but most aren't actually that good. They are entertaining though.

One moment that I will never forget was watching two hustlers play each other for fun. The position was something like white had a pawn at a4 and a king at c7. Black had a pawn at h5 and a king at f3. Black to move. Black offered a draw, white said OK, I let out an involuntary, "WHAT?" They drew and black said, "You really think white can win here? I'll bet you $5 on that. I agreed so we played.

... h4 a5 h3 a6 h2 a7 h1(Q) a8(Q)+

Black was in check, and no matter where he moved his king, his queen was toast.

Easiest $5 I ever made.

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One of the things with hustlers is they need to encourage people to play and bet. So you never know when a hustler is just letting something happen and hoping that when you win a bet or game, it will encourage you to start betting and then they'll make more serious money. Which isn't saying this is what happened, just sayin' you don't know for certain that isn't what happened.

But this is a draw. Black plays Kg2 on any of the first three moves. I can't tell who's hustling whom in this story because as described, none of the three participants can be far above beginners.

Maybe the Black king was on e4 and the story would work?

The problem is, then white queen follows up with checks which eventually also attack the black pawn. Since the black pawn is at a3, there is no immediate threat of queening. If black moves the king away from the pawn, white grabs it. If black keeps the king near the pawn, white forces black king under the pawn, and then moves his king, and black is forced to give up the pawn.

Every continuation is losing for black.

The black pawn is on the h-file and never goes to a3. It's on h2 at the point where White queens with check. Black plays Kg1 and reaches a well known drawing position [0].

This is one of the first chess endgames most people learn after how to mate with queen or rook. Like I said, anyone playing at more than a beginner level normally knows this. Kf2 (instead of Kg2) draws in the same way.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_and_pawn_versus_queen_en...

>The black pawn is on the h-file and never goes to a3.

Meant h3, sorry, result of mental calculations.

I just checked on an analysis engine, and it confirms: every position is losing for black, as long as white does not mess it up, and has the first move.

You can try it out here: https://www.chess.com/analysis

Load FEN: 8/2K5/8/7p/P7/5k2/8/8 w - - 0 1

> every position is losing for black, as long as white does not mess it up, and has the first move.

But white doesn't have the first move. From the post:

> Black to move. Black offered a draw...

> I agreed so we played ... h4 a5 h3 a6 h2 a7 h1(Q) a8(Q)+

If white was to move the story would make even less sense. You can try it out by changing "w" to "b" in your FEN.

I missed this part "Black to move. Black offered a draw" - thanks for pointing that out. In that case, it is a draw. Of course, unless black messes it up!

That’s wild! I’m not very good but if black offered me a draw in this position my thought would be “his pawn is faster, so why would he offer a draw? Unless he thinks he’s losing for some reason…” which would be the hint to look for the tactic.

I guess in many queen/king endgames you can have perpetual checks, but accepting the draw wouldn’t be my first instinct.

Their thinking was, "We both queen, and queen+king against queen+king is a draw." And normally it is.

Do you remember the complete PGN of the game?

I have no clue. It was a blitz game and I was just a bystander.

I assume there were still other pieces? Otherwise he can just trade queens and it would still be a draw.

It's a skewer – the White Queen on a8, the Black King on f3 and the Black Queen on h1 all lie on the long diagonal. The King has to move and it can't protect the Queen on h1.

Ah now I see. I didn't visualize the board enough and only checked that none of the kings were close to the promotion squares. Thanks for explaining :)

Isn't that essentially the same endgame at the ending of Searching for Bobby Fischer?

Yes the same. The pawn race and subsequent diagonal pin are the same.

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