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| Jan-14-04 | | marekg248: Playing 44. f8=N+ was very good, after 44. f8=D white king would be mated!44. ... Qc2+ 45. Kf3 Qe2+ 46. Kf4 Qe4# |
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| Feb-23-05 | | Whitehat1963: What a glorious endgame from the player of the day!! |
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| Apr-17-05 | | kanter: once again we see the situation of promoting pawn to knight than queen |
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| Dec-04-09 | | Jim Bartle: With Svidler vs V Malakhov, 2009 readily accessible in the short-term memory, not hard to find. |
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| Dec-04-09 | | ComboKal: This is going to be one of those promote to knight puzzles, given the position of the black king. It wouldn't have even crossed my mind if it wasn't a puzzle! Black would play Kg8 or QxN. |
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| Dec-04-09 | | SamAtoms1980: The horseman strikes again: 44 f8=N+! Kg8 45 Be6+!! Qxe6 46 Qxe6+ Kxf8 47 Qxd5. White should now be up enough to win, I think. |
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| Dec-04-09 | | zooter: This was a fun puzzle, but I think I got this rather quickly by 44.Qxg6 which off course loses Then I had a look at my initial candidate
The underpromotion
44.f8=N+ Kg8 45.Be6+ winning
The point is that white's queen must get off the f-file if he has to use his bishop else he loses Example
44.f8=Q Qc2 mates
44.Bxc8 Rf8+ cleans up
Time to check |
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| Dec-04-09 | | psmith: Like yesterday's Thursday puzzle I found this to be too easy for the second half of the week. |
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| Dec-04-09 | | remolino: 44. ? White to play, "difficult".
White is down a rook so it most find something decisive immediatively to win material back or mate. Motifs:
Pawn promotion. Attach on Black queen. But White king could be subject to checks also, so there is no time for quiet moves. Candidates:
44.f8N+ Kg8 forced
45.Be6+ Qxe6 forced
46.Qxe6+ Kxf8 (what else?)
47.Qxd5 with clear advantage to White.
Queen is by far superior to bishop and rook in given position - open space, open Black king, uncordinated rook and bishop and pawns to grab on both sides of the board. Time to check. |
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| Dec-04-09 | | ComboKal: I was right about <44.f8=N>, but wrong with <44..QxN>. I thought at first glance that black could get the queen back after <45.Qxf8> with <45..Rf1>, but the white bishop is guarding f1, so it wouldn't work. I should have taken more time with a Friday puzzle! |
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| Dec-04-09 | | Formula7: White is down a rook and if he promotes to a queen Black has 44...Qc2+ 45.Ke3/Kd3 Qe2+ 46.Kf4 Qe4#. But if White promotes to a knight it's check and Black can't take it because of 45.Qxf8. After 44...Kg8 45.Be6+ Qxe6 46.Qxe6+ Kxf8 White is up queen for bishop and rook. This must be it. |
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| Dec-04-09 | | TheBish: Furman vs Keres, 1948 White to play (44.?) "Difficult"
White is down a rook, but is able to queen immediately. Candidate moves: f8=Q, f8=N+, Bxc8
44. Bxc8 Rf1+ 45. Kg2 Rxf6 and Black wins.
44. f8=Q Qc2+ 45. Ke3 Qe2+ 46. Kf4 Qe4#. White needs something more forcing! 44. f8=N+! Kg8 45. Be6+ Qxe6 46. Qxe6+ Kxf8 47. Qxd5 with a winning advantage to White. |
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| Dec-04-09 | | bangkokgambit: This puzzle is an ironic of yesterday game. |
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Dec-04-09
 | | RandomVisitor: 40.e7 Qe8 41.Rc8  . |
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Dec-04-09
 | | dzechiel: White to move (44?). Black is up a rook. "Difficult." The threat of 44...Qc2+ 45 Kf3 Qe2+ 46 Kf4 Qe4# cannot be ignored. White's move here must be forcing (and by "forcing", I mean "give check"). The only reasonable way that I see is... 44 f8=N+ Kg8
Black could give up the queen with 44...Qxf8 45 Qxf8, but that's just losing. 45 Be6+ Qxe6
Forced, as there is no other legal move.
46 Qxe6+ Kxf8
So I spent some time here looking for long, complex queen check sequences that allowed white to pick up the bishop on d3, but finally decided that it was easier to just snap off the d-pawn with 47 Qxd5
which also threatens 48 Qxa5 as well as 48 Qf3+ Bf5 49 g4. Time to check and see how this one finished up.
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Cool. I'm having a good week. |
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| Dec-04-09 | | boringplayer: A nice game, with a pleasant combo. I think Furman was Spassky's coach for some years. |
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Dec-04-09
 | | whiteshark: <ComboKal: ... I should have taken more time with a Friday puzzle!> Me too! :D |
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| Dec-04-09 | | stacase: In all my years of playing chess, I have never under promoted to a Knight or had it pulled on me. To get right down to it, for me getting a Pawn all the way across isn't an everyday occurrance. But at any rate, this is just like (was it this past Monday?) the need to keep up the pressure could be achieved by having a brand new Knight say check. It forces Black to play one of two moves both of which lead to loss of the Queen. So would I see this one over the board? Hmmmm, good question. |
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| Dec-04-09 | | Biscoito: It might be to easy for a friday, but I'm happy to have solved my first friday puzzle ever. |
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Dec-04-09
 | | Once: At first it seems that black is having all the fun, with moves like Qc2 and Rf1 in the offing. But, we are playing white and we have tricks of our own - mainly the Prince Charles pawn on f7 (almost, nearly, one day, will be crowned), the fact that the black king is stalemated and the Bh3 attack on the Qc8. Oh, and we start the position a whole rook down. But first we need to get rid of the tempters. 44. Bxc8? Rf1+ and both our queen and passed pawn are going. Ouch. 44. f8=Q Qc2+ 45. Kf3 Qe2+ 46. Kf4 Qe4# Ouch. Very ouch, baby. So clearly we need to get moving quickly, and the only sensible check in the position is the underpromotion to a knight. And that has been admirably analysed already, so no need to repeat. Yup, does seem easy for a Friday. <stacase: So would I see this one over the board? Hmmmm, good question.> One thing that helps to spot underpromotions is that the alternatives tend to be worse. After all, underpromoting to a knight or bishop rather than a queen is equivalent to saccing a whole rook! So we generally underpromote either to avoid a stalemate or to give check as part of a tactical sequence. And that makes them easier to spot. The general rule is to promote to a queen unless there are very compelling reasons to do otherwise. And those compelling reasons are generally fairly obvious. What is often more difficult is to get a pawn to the seventh in order to set up promotion tricks. Your opponent will be trying his hardest to stop you from getting a passed pawn and marching it up the board. So getting to this position often requires violent measures, such as saccing a piece (as in today's game). And many of us can be reluctant to give away a whole piece just to advance a lowly pawn a few squares. So we get few promotion tricks and therefore few opportunities for underpromotions. It takes quite a bit of chess experience to give up something tangible (a rook, bishop or knight) for something intangible or less tangible (position, an attack, a bind, an advanced passed pawn.) |
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| Dec-04-09 | | Eduardo Leon: What's so difficult about promoting to a knight to prevent mate? 44.f8= +  g8
Not 44... xf8 45.xf8 and now there's no way black can mate white. 45. e6+
Of course, not 45.xc8??  f1+, and suddenly it is black who wins. 45...xe6 46.xe6+ xf8 47.xd5
Black is not only down in material (white has a and a  for black's and ). He also can't prevent the fall of his a pawn (47...a5 48.d8+ f7/g7 49.d7+). |
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| Dec-04-09 | | newzild: Happy to get this after missing yesterday's relatively easy one. |
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| Dec-04-09 | | Eduardo Leon: Perhaps this week's theme is that all puzzles must be (somewhat) easy. Let's see whether they keep it until Sunday. |
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Dec-04-09
 | | agb2002: White has a pawn for a rook. Black threatens mate in three with 44... Qc2+ and 44... Qxh3. The obvious 44.Bxc8 leads to a lost endgame after 44... Rf1+ 45.Ke3 Rxf6 46.Kxd3 Rxf7. For example, 47.Be6 (47.a4 Rf3+ 48.Ke2 Ra3 49.Bd7 Ra2+ 50.Ke3 Rxh2) Rf3+ 48.Ke2 Rxa3 49.Bxd5 Ra5 50.Kd3 Rb4 51.Kc3 Kg7 followed by the march of the black king to the center of the board. However, the passed pawn close to the black king suggests 44.f8=N+: A) 44... Kg8 45.Be6+ Qxe6 46.Qxe6+ Kxf8 47.Qxd5 with the double threat 48.Qf3+ Bf5 49.g4 and 48.Qxa5. B) 44... Qxf8 45.Qxf8 with multiple threats: 46.Ke3 (or 46.Qe7+) followed by Be6 (46.Be6 Rf1+ and 47... Rxf8), 46.Qf7+ and 47.Qxd5, 46.Qa8, etc. |
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| Dec-04-09 | | gofer: Black threatens 44 ... Qc2+ 45 Kf3/Ke3 Qe2+ 46 Kf4 Qe4#, so white has no time for moves like 44 f8=Q, so what are the alternatives? Candidates: Ke3, Bxc8 and f8=N+
44 Ke3 Qc1+ winning
44 Bxc8 Rf1+ 45 Ke3 Rxf6 winning
44 f8=N+!
44 ... Qxf8 46 Qxf8 winning as Bh3 is protecting against Rf1+
44 ... Kg8
45 Be6+ Qxe6
46 Qxe6+ Kxf8
47 Qxd5
It is important that white stops any potential Rf1/Re1 checks that win the queen and probably winning the d5 pawn is the most sensible
way to do this. At this point white is easily winning... Time to check... |
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