An endgame from Deutschland Grand Prix 2022 McShane vs Bluebaum

Question

In a Game McShane vs Bluebaum, played at Deutschland Grand Prix 2022, the following endgame popped up.

[White "McShane"]
[Black "Bluebaum"]
[fen "3r1k2/5p2/1pp2Np1/1b1pR3/1P1P2PP/4KP2/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

Karsten Muller stated that after g5 c5 (!) Black draw. In the game , after g5 Bc4(?) White cruised to win. Mr Muller may be right on this , but Stockfish 14.1 NNUE uncover h5 (!) instead of g5 wins against any defense. h5 is evaluated at + 4.94 at depth = 47/79. Moreover , I did a second iteration starting from a critical point , Black to move at depth 41/43 and the evaluation was even slightly higher, precisely at + 5.68. It seems Karsten Muller missed this win in his analysis too.

So is this position a win for White?

Answer 1

I'm assuming the depth 48 evaluation from today on the cloud is you :)

I have a similar evaluation using Stockfish 15 at depth 29, so yes I think it's pretty clear 1.h5 (or 1.f4) are both objectively winning for White. Whether Karsten Muller missed it though I don't know. It depends if he said the position before 1.g5 was a draw. If he just gave the g5 line and showed how Black could have drawn against it, that might imply he thinks 1.g5 is a mistake and that White could have done better (but he just chose not to include 1.h5/1.f4 as an improvement). On the other hand, if he said the position before 1.g5 was a draw because of the 1...c5 resource, then he'd be wrong.