White to play (29.?) "Difficult"

Strange, but I thought we had this already for the daily puzzle. I guess I saw this after Smyslov passed away, as it was one of his best. Anyway, it was easy for me as I was familiar with it.

29. g4+!!

A rook sacrifice that leads to mate if accepted; Black is hard pressed to refuse, since 30. fxg5, winning a piece, will be the result.

29...Kxf4 30. Nf2+ Kxf4 31. Rg1!

The proverbial "quite move" that Smyslov had to see for the sac to work. Now Black has his choice of two mates, the threatened 32. Bd2# or...

31...e4 32. Nh3#.

OK, not much time, but I think I see what's happening. Black's bishop is en prise, but so is white's rook. It would be nice to be able to capture the bishop with check, so let's start with...

29 g4+ Kxe4

If 29...Kxg4 (or 29...Ke6/f6/g6), then 30 fxg5 picks up a piece.

30 Nf2+ Kxf4

Only legal move.

31 Rg1

The "hard to find" move. And now the only way black can stop 32 Bd2# is to play

31...e4

which allows

32 Nh3#

In the week following Smyslov's passing, I was reasonably succcessful with the puzzles in contrast to this week.

So let's see. Material even, black's bishop and white's rook under threat.

Nc5 leads nowhere. I cannot get fxg5 or g4+ to work. I cannot see any knight forks coming to bear. White could simply play 29. Nf2. Then 29...Bf6 30. g4+ Kg6. Is this the way forward? At this point I am not sure. Perhaps 31. f5+ Kg7 (not Kg5 32. Bd2 mate !) 32. Rg1

I certainly prefer white's position here, but there is a long way to go to claim the point, and I am no expert in this ending.

Rest in peace, Smyslov

Look away now if you don't like this sort of stuff.

Thanks to a quick trip in our time machine, we find ourselves in prehistoric Britain. Ugg is sitting on the floor of his semi-detached cave banging two rocks together.

Uggette, his thick browed wife, is smearing mammoth dung on her cheeks, dreaming of the day when someone will invent make-up. "Why don't you go out hunting sabre-tooth tigers like the other troglodytes?" she asks. "Or you could go stare at the shiny black obelisk again."

"Peace, peace, light of my life, sharer of my cave, mother of my children. I'm trying to invent fire."

She tuts scornfully. "You and your silly ideas. It'll never work. All you'll do is get bruised knuckles and the neighbours will complain about the noise."

Ugg keeps knocking the rocks together. "Yes, but, just think what we could do with fire! We could stay warm and snug in our cave. It would frighten away the wolves. Then we could move away from being hunter-gatherers and start farming. Oh, and that would give us time for civilization, an industrial revolution, the internet..."

Today's puzzle is about inspiration and perspiration. The inspiration is to spot that we need to kick the black king away from the white rook on e4. Then we can grab the black bishop on g5. So the move that we really want to make work is 29. g4+. If we can force the black king to retreat, our next move will be 30. fxg5.

Of course, the problem with 29. g4+ is that it leaves the Re4 en prise. But let's not abandon the idea just yet. Let's see if we can make it work.

The black king is now deep into our territory and we are close to weaving a mating net. We must stop black from running back to safety via d5 or having the time to grab g4 with either pawn or bishop so the next move has to be 30. Nf2+ and black's reply is forced: 30...Kxf4.

Now black's king is nearly stalemated, so that any check would produce mate. We just need to cover the g3 escape square. Our rook is no longer needed to guard the d file, so 31. Rg1 comes to mind. We are threatening Bd2# or if 31...e4 32. Nh3#

A spark flashes from the rocks in Ugg's hands. It lands in a pile of leaves and starts to smoulder. He quickly blows on it, and seconds later we have fire.

"See! I told you it would work," says Uggette. "Now hurry up and invent handbags, cappucino and Jimmy Choos."

29 g4 ...

Black has to chose between

30 ... Ke6/Kf6/Kg6 31 fxg5 winning

and

30 ... Kxe4
31 Nf2+ Kxf4
32 Rg1 ...

The mating net is complete, white just needs to give check and it will be mate, so black must give its king an escape square of e5 or g5.

32 ... Bf6/Bh4
33 Bd2#

32 ... e4 (the only way of stopping 33 Bd2#)
33 Nh3#

Black threatens 29... Kxe4 and 29... exf4.

<29.?>

Target: 6:00;000
Taken: not timed, and I think after at most 2 minutes I spotted this

Material: White up,

Candidates: Nxe5, Bxe5, fxg5, <[g4†]>

-ML-
Took me a while and I wasn't in fact planning to completely solve this one. However, I noticed the Black to be in a very peculiar position. At first, I thought White could hand the exchange only to regain material due to the King's position later. Looks like I was wrong: it's gonna be mate at the cost of a Rook, or a full Bishop.

What we can see is that White is threatening the Bishop on g5, and Black is threatening the Rook on e4. However, the latter is attacked by the KING, and the King is the most fragile piece. Zwischenzugs are very common when it comes to dual threats with a King involved. So is here. White wins with:

<29.g4†!> not taking the Rook allows White his zwischenzug, as 30.fxg5 simply wins then.

<29....Kxe4 30.Nf2† Kf4 31.Rg1!> and it's over! With f5 taken away from the Black King, it's suddenly trapped. No single Black piece has the power to stop the White Bishop from 32.Bd2‡. There is ONE move for Black (this I missed initially) that stops the immediate Bishop mate.

<31....e4> of course, the King wants to get back to his home camp as soon as possible, he is a Rook up. This move makes the Bishop necessary in square defense (e5) but the Black pawn is now making the Knight neglectable (as the Knight was defending only e4)! So:

<29.g4+>

Neglecting the material to gain time completing the mate net.

<29...Kxe4> The king's retreat og f6 or g6 causes the loss of the bishop on g5

<30.Nf2+ Kxf4> and now... <31.Rg1!> closing the net.

if 31.Bd2+ Kg3 32.Rg1 Kh2 and the black king can survive. The threat is Bd2#.

But exploring this theme with a bit more thought 29 g4+ and if 29 ... Kxg4 then W does win the piece. Soinstead 29 ... Kxe4 and now the BK cant go back to f5 and it looks like one of those mating nets we had a lot of some time ago. Then 30 Nf2+ Kxf4 (forced) 31 Rg1 (took some finding but I learned the lesson of yesterday) threatens 32 Bd2#. Only way to prevent that is 31 ... e4. Then 32 Nh3#.

I looked first at 29 fxg5 Kxe5 30 gxh6: Black can build dangerous counter-play but this is a tempting over-the-board winning attempt (against a human opponent, not Crafty). Then I looked further and spotted 29 g4+ Kxe4 30 Nf2+ Kxf4 31 Rg1 and 32 Bd2# cannot be prevented. This is my final answer. Black can bail out with 30...Kxg4 31 fxg5+ Kf5! 32 Kf3 hxg4 when White has B for 2P abd should win the ending. Time to check:
====
Got it! Makes up for yesterday's loss.
Carafty End Game Trainer link to the puzzle position:

click for larger view

click for larger view

White to play and mate in two. After Rg1 there is indeed a defence to Bd2# namely e4 <dzechiel>: but this allows Nh3#