Beautiful Puzzles and Studies - 2/7

The Puzzle

White to play and find the best continuation. Stop here because by scrolling any further you will see the solution.

Solution

In the 2nd puzzle of our series of 7 studies, we examine a common bishop endgame study. White is down two pawns, so the best result possible for white is a draw. A really key thing to identify is that the h1 promotion square is of the opposite colour of Black's bishop. Knowing that the king is already occupying h1, even if Black has an extra bishop and pawns on the h-file, the position is a dead draw given white stays within that 2x2 box (g2, g1, h2, h1). This only works for corner pawns due to stalemate tricks.

I hope all of this brings you to the correct first move, Bh6! Ironically enough, tablebase says it's a draw but stockfish 16.1 gives this -2 for black:
So, back to Bh6. If black takes with gxh6, despite having two pawns on the h-file, the opposite colour bishop scenario arises, giving us a familiar fortress draw (see a previous blog devoted to that topic). Otherwise, the g7 pawn is pinned, so white is threatening to take Bxg7 in order to reach the same fortress.

Hope this was helpful and an interesting one, see you soon for puzzle 3 of 7!