The Reti Manoeuvre
White to play and draw, after Reti
PlayYour king looks hopelessly late: the enemy pawn runs for the corner and your own pawn is about to fall. Reti's immortal idea saves it, because a king on the diagonal chases two targets at once.
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The Reti Manoeuvre
Hold the draw against perfect play
Waking the engine…
The theory
Richard Reti's 1921 study is the most famous four-piece position in chess, and it rewired how players think about the king. A king that looks two full tempi too slow holds the draw, because diagonal king moves do two jobs at once.
The geometry. On a chessboard the diagonal path is exactly as fast as the straight one: same number of moves, different squares visited. A king chasing a pawn straight down the board gains nothing else with each step. The same king on the diagonal keeps pace with the runner AND walks toward the other wing, where its own passed pawn needs an escort. Two threats, one route.
The fork in the road. At the critical moment the defender faces an impossible split: deal with the escort threat and the chasing king steps inside the square of the passed pawn; ignore it and the weaker side's own pawn promotes with king support. Either branch halves the point.
Why it matters beyond the study: shortest-path thinking is a habit from other games, and it costs real half points. Whenever your king must travel, ask what else each route threatens along the way. This drill makes the tablebase punish every straight-line step, which is the fastest way to unlearn the habit.