The Witty Knights

On my way back from USA I stopped by in Belgium for a very important match of my team Amay. We needed to win on any rate, but things seemed very bad for us. I had terrible game on board one against my friend Nicolas Clery, and had to lose. Luckily for me though, I managed to escape thanks to my great knight duo:
Bojkov,D (2544) - Clery,N (2402)
Belgium Interclubs Amay, 06.02.2011
[Bojkov,Dejan]


57.Nf5+ Kh7 58.Ng5+ Kg6 [58...Kh8 59.Nf7+ Kh7 (59...Kg8 60.Ne7+ Kxf7 61.Nxd5=) 60.Ng5+] 1/2
Knights did great job, saved the half point and gave us the desired victory by a minimal margin 4.5-3.5. I sent the endgame to the famous etudist IM Yochanan Afek (he likes collecting practical ideas and implementing them into his own studies, and there were some other nice moments in the endgame prior to this position). And in return received this fabulous study:

Nadareishvili,G


White's pieces are scattered around and it seems impossible for them to coordinate without heavy losses. However: 1.Nb4+ Ka5 2.Nc6+ Ka4 3.Nb6+ Ka3 4.Nc4+ Ka2


5.Bf3! Yochanan wrote me that the study is cooked due to the tablebases-[5.N4e5! cook VV 5...Qxh5+ 6.Kg7 Qf5 7.Ng6 Kb2 8.Nce7 Qe6 9.Ng8 and according to those tablebases this position is a theoretical draw. Still, the author's idea is safer, quicker, and much, much more bautiful!] 5...Qxf3 [5...Qf8+ 6.Kh7 Qf7+ 7.Kh8 Qxc4 8.Bd5 Qxd5 9.Nb4+] 6.Nb4+ Ka1


And here we are again. Familiar position, is not it? The only difference is that the hunted prey is more delicious- 7.Nc2+ Ka2 8.Nb4+ 1/2