|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 3 OF 3 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
Feb-10-14
 | | Penguincw: Darn it! I missed the exchange sac. 0/1 this week. :( |
|
| Feb-10-14 | | cocker: What used to be a very enjoyable feature of Chessgames has been ruined for players like me. |
|
Feb-10-14
 | | OhioChessFan: <cocker> if you missed it, it likely was being careless and going for the obvious Queen sac on Monday. And don't think nobody else misses them. I missed one a while back that had everyone saying how easy it was, Bxf7+ being a move that I somehow missed, along with not playing out the line I thought was winning far enough. I know in my case, it's more laziness than anything. Today's puzzle makes you see that 23 Qxf7+ Rxf7 24 Re8+ Qf8 doesn't work. Then you try again and probably see the real solution. But learn from it and try again tomorrow. |
|
Feb-10-14
 | | paulalbert: Got Rxd4 OK seeing immediate Qxf7ch did not work, but didn't stop to consider Rxb3 try. Lesson: Do not rush to conclusions even on Monday without some careful analysis! |
|
Feb-10-14
 | | skeptic50: Got it in under a minute! Oh, wait, it's Monday - no big whoop. |
|
| Feb-10-14 | | morfishine: <mike1> In the 23...Rxb3 line, the problem with 24.Qe4 is <24...f5> thus 24.Qd1 is best |
|
| Feb-10-14 | | kevin86: The intermezzo- Rxd4 is necessary to chase the queen away. Intermezzos on a Monday-I softly cry FOUL! |
|
| Feb-10-14 | | JG27Pyth: I got this instantly! Finally, I thought, Finally a Monday that I get in a split second. Not 10 seconds, not 1 second... but in a Nakamura like flash of crystalline tactical vision. I was quite pleased with myself, too... Then I checked the solution.
:( Well, Naka's been having trouble too lately. |
|
| Feb-10-14 | | Cheapo by the Dozen: The obvious displacement/pin/backrank line is
23 Rxd4 Qxd4
24 Qxf7+
with mate to follow.
The only serious variation I see is
23 Rxd4 Rxb3
24 Qd1/Qe4/Qg4
with material gain inevitable unless Black can whip up counterplay against the White king. So my main line is: 23 Rxd4 Rxb3
24 Qg4 f5
25 Rxd6
but strictly speaking Black has some less bad (yet still totally losing) defenses. |
|
| Feb-10-14 | | Once: <kevin86> Fair point. But to add insult to injury today we have an intermezzo (23. Rxd4) followed by a desperado (23...Rxb3). Or maybe we should say that 23...Rxb3 is also an intermezzo, so that makes today's solution an intermezzo followed by a desperado intermezzo. Then again the singular of ravioli is a raviolo (even if the auto spell checker doesn't allow it ... grrrr), so we could have raviolo with parmagiano with our intermezzo desperado. No?
I suppose it's analogous to those occasions where we get a zwischenzug zugzwang? |
|
| Feb-10-14 | | Cheapo by the Dozen: Yikes! I got sloppy on a Monday!!??!!
I forgot that Black's queen is protected. |
|
| Feb-10-14 | | ajile: I saw the 23..Rxb3 idea also so really this puzzle is a fail. Black didn't need to resign so soon. |
|
| Feb-10-14 | | BOSTER: 
click for larger view
Black to play 20...
Rd2, or g6 and no problem. |
|
| Feb-10-14 | | schweigzwang: Thank god for Mondays. |
|
| Feb-10-14 | | whiteshark: <Monday, Monday!>
There are always mates for those who want to see them. |
|
| Feb-10-14 | | Patriot: <morf> I think you nailed it! <PM(2): On 23.Rxd4 Rxb3 24.Qd1 Rxg3+ I think 25.fxg3 is best since 25.Kh2 Rd3+ 26.Rxd6 Rxd6 leaves Black with 2R vs Q+R which is better than being down a whole piece facing a mating attack> It took me a bit to think about this, because it's an interesting question of material and counterplay. With 25.fxg3, black also has some initiative with 25...Qxg3+ so black is up 3 pawns for a rook which is 5 - 3 = 2 pawns in white's favor. After 25.Kh2 Rd3+ 26.Rxd6 Rxd6, black is up two pawns and a rook for a queen which is 9.75 - 7 = 2.75 pawns in white's favor. If instead 25.Kh2 Rd3+ 26.Rxd6 Rxd1 27.Rdxd1, white has a rook for 2 pawns which is 5 - 2 = 3 pawns in white's favor. While there is only a difference of 0.25 pawns in material, even if this wasn't the case I still completely agree with your line ending in 26...Rxd6 because that extra rook means more counterplay, even if it is still bleak for black. But this is material evaluation. Houdini gives 25.Kh2 +4.64 pawns; 25.fxg3 is worth +2.28 pawns. That's the dynamic evaluation. |
|
| Feb-10-14 | | Patriot: <scormus> Thanks! You and <devere> are right about 25.Kh2. When I worked on the Monday POTD, I was really expecting to solve it in less than 5 seconds. But this...NO WAY! There were several candidates and the queen sac on f7 was a very familiar pattern to me but black has ...Qf8, and it went from there. |
|
| Feb-10-14 | | Gypsy: So, the game is <22...Bxd4? 23.Rxd4 Qxd4? 24.Qxf7+...>, where Black twice overlooks a fairly standard mating motive. Black can certainly improve by <23...Rxb3!>, where the sting lies in lines such as <24.Qd1 Rxg3+!? 25.fxg3? Qxg3+ 26.Kf1 Qh3+ 27.Ke2 Qg2+ and 28...Qxa2>, and White win remains rather arduous. But White too has improvements; for instance
<23...Rxb3! 24.Qg4 f5 25.Qd1 Rxg3+!? 26.Kh2!...>, where Black soon perishes because of extensive material loses. |
|
| Feb-10-14 | | sfm: Dear <Gypsy> I would really love to know where you got that drawing for your avatar. It was drawn 30 years ago by a friend of mine for a front page for our club magazine LVS. Are you him? Are you Danish? It is on-line somewhere? The evil-triumphant rook is a part of a larger drawing where a king gets mated. |
|
| Feb-10-14 | | MountainMatt: <cocker: What used to be a very enjoyable feature of Chessgames has been ruined for players like me.> I'm with you, 100%. Yes, I got 23. Rxd4 (finally!), but I didn't really enjoy it, knowing that this is NOT A MONDAY-LEVEL PUZZLE! C'mon Chessgames, give us a break! |
|
| Feb-10-14 | | PJs Studio: M. Hassan and Phony Benoni described this position the way it needs to be taught. Nice. |
|
| Feb-10-14 | | MiCrooks: Hmmm...I went with Rxd4 but kept thinking there had to be a way to make Qxf7 work...it is only Monday. I think that finding Rxb3 Qd1 is a bit beyond your normal Monday fare...they just assume that Black is going to play as in the game and allow Qxf7? Hmmm... |
|
| Feb-11-14 | | Patriot: <MiCrooks> Yeah I thought it was bizarre that black made it so easy! |
|
| Feb-11-14 | | morfishine: <Patriot> Interesting points on material and dynamic evals. Whats lacking in even the strongest engine is the ability to evaluate the position or create an accurate 'Positional Eval' broken down in number form. |
|
| Feb-12-14 | | Gypsy: < sfm: Dear <Gypsy> I would really love to know where you got that drawing for your avatar. It was drawn 30 years ago by a friend of mine for a front page for our club magazine LVS. Are you him? Are you Danish? It is on-line somewhere? The evil-triumphant rook is a part of a larger drawing where a king gets mated.> Sadly, I can not draw and I am not Danish. I was born in (back then) Czechoslovakia. Although I do not reside there now, I travel over often enough; and during my trips I like it when I travel trough Copenhagen, I really like the feel of the place. An abbreviated story of The Dancing Rook on this site is roughly this: Back in the early days, when this community was rapidly forming its habits and traditions, we were given a brilliant treat -- live-broadcast of the games from Kramnik-Leko World Championship Match (2004). Perhaps you recall the tremendous first game of that match, Leko vs Kramnik, 2004? For us here, a serendipitous coincidence struck: As Kramnik's black rooks danced to their victory over in Brissago (and forced Leko's exhausted queen give up the fight), the Dancing Rook for the first time also danced its dance on the screen here, as if by magic. Students secretly programmed a little surprise for their professors, and for the rest of us, and that surprise worked exceedingly well. Thus we voted (begged, really) to keep the Dancing Rook celebrations of decisive games in live broadcasts as a permanent tradition from that point on. My connection to the rook is also slightly serendipitous, much less so however. When premium memberships first came to be, I chose from then available avatars a black rook. It was a solid rook, of a bit brooding outlook though. A couple of years later, when the avatar version of the Dancing Rook became available, I somehow managed to trade. (Another user got the Dancing Rook first, but yielded it when he realized that I was a semi-permanent furniture around here.) |
|
 |
|
|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 3 OF 3 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
Kibitzing
sac: 23.Rxd4