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Jan-18-10
 | | An Englishman: Good Evening: An oddity from our Opening of the Day for 1/18/2010--after only 7 moves, Black's problem child QB is the best minor on the board. 20...Black to Play would make an amusing Tuesday or Wednesday puzzle. |
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| Feb-03-10 | | WhenHarryMetSally: I was a looking for a decisive advantage. I saw the forking possibility, but then dismissed it because it doesn't give a huge gain IMO (remembering I"m a poor player, even by a beginner's stnadards) |
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Feb-03-10
 | | OBIT: Well, OK, 20...Qf3 21. gxf3 Nxf3+ 22. Kg2 Nxd2 wins a whole pawn, but after 23. Ng3 I'd be wondering if I have to give it back, as after 23...Rae8 24. b3, the knight on d2 looks like it may get trapped by Rc1-c2. I see White did NOT play 24. b3, so the trap must not work, but for sure that's what I'd have tried. |
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Feb-03-10
 | | lost in space: I was playing around with 3 moves:
20...Nxg2??, Nf3+? and Qf3
The best move is 20...Qf3 21. gxf3
(21. Ng3?? Qxg2#)
21...Nxf3+ 22. Kg2 Nxd2
This wins "only" a pawn, but white has no compensation at all. |
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| Feb-03-10 | | SamAtoms1980: Hall opens a can with 20 ... Qf3!! The mate threat can only be met with one move. 21 gxf3 Nxf3+ 22 Kg2 Nxd2
A pawn goes, and Black would win the game in due course. <OBIT: Well, OK, 20...Qf3 21. gxf3 Nxf3+ 22. Kg2 Nxd2 wins a whole pawn, but after 23. Ng3 I'd be wondering if I have to give it back, as after 23...Rae8 24. b3, the knight on d2 looks like it may get trapped by Rc1-c2.> 23 Ng3 Rae8 24 b3 c4! liquefies the knight trap. |
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Feb-03-10
| | OBIT: After 20...Qf3 21. gxf3 Nxf3+ 22. Kg2 Nxd2 23. Ng3 Rae8 24. b3, Black can play 24...Ne4 to get the knight to safety. However, then 25. Nxe4 dxe4 is interesting. Now 26. Rxe4?? is unplayable due to 26...Bc6, but after 26. Ne5 White seems to have compensation for the pawn. Black's extra pawn is doubled and isolated. |
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Feb-03-10
 | | dzechiel: Black to move (20...?). Material even. "Medium/Easy." I have been looking at this a long time, and I can't find anything better than the win of a pawn with 20...Qf3
Black must either move the queen or give check (because white threatens 21 Nxf6+), and the only two checks that black can give, 20...Qxf2+ 21 Nxf2, or 20...Nf3+ 21 gxf3, both look like they just lose material. But after the text black threatens 21...Qxg2#.
21 gxf3
White could try to defend g2 with 21 Nf4, but after 21...Rxf4 black is just up a piece. 21...Nxf3+ 22 Kg2 Nxd2
and presumably black will triumph in the endgame.
Time to check. |
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Feb-03-10
| | OBIT: <SamAtoms>After 24. b3 c4 25. b4 Nb7 (25...Nc6? 26. a4 Ba6 27. b5 wins a piece) 26. Ne5 threatens a4. White still seems to have good chances. |
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Feb-03-10
| | OBIT: Thinking about 24. b3 some more, I think the answer is 24...cxd4 25. cxd4 Nc6. Then if 26. Rc1 Nxd4 Black is definitely much better. |
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| Feb-03-10 | | zooter: I would play
20...Qf3 threat (21.Qxg2#) 21.gxf3 Nxf3+ 22.Kg2 Nxd2 winning a pawn, but is this all to a puzzle? Off course black's position is very strong withe central control and marauding knights, but did I miss something? Time to check |
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| Feb-03-10 | | mertangili: <OBIT> After 24. b3 i think 24...Bd3 is also playable, although 25. Re3 Be4+ 26. Nxe4 Nxe4 results in the exchange of bishop for knight, blacks paw formation remains solid. |
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Feb-03-10
 | | patzer2: For today's Wednesday puzzle, 20...Qf3! sets up a Knight Fork to win a pawn. What makes the combination decisive is when the dust is settled, White is left with two weak isolated pawns which he can't defend in the end game. |
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Feb-03-10
 | | Once: Yet again CG proves that is is the antidote to normal chess puzzles. Most other chess puzzles are much more clear-cut - a decisive material win or a mate. But in real life tactics are often used for smaller gains, such as to get a better position or to win a pawn. The actual tactic was easy to see. The harder bit was convincing myself that black didn't have anything better. This is a puzzle, after all... |
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Feb-03-10
| | patzer2: It would seem 20. Ng4? was White's decisive mistake. Instead, 20. Ng3 = appears to hold. |
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| Feb-03-10 | | gofer: I have been looking at this for about 5 minutes and all I can see is 20 ... Qf3. The point being that
there are only a few ways to protect against 21 ... Qxg2# and one of those allows 21 ... Qxf2+ causing
more problems for white. If white plays 21 gxf3 then black unleases the royal fork on f3, wins back
the queen and now controls the area around the d2, d3, e2, e4, c4 and will soon make the pawn majority
even larger by playing Nc4 attacking b2. So I am going to loo at 20 ... Qf3 a bit closer and post again
once I have had a chance to think about it... |
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Feb-03-10
 | | JG27Pyth: CG keeping us honest with a combination to win a pawn and inflict structural damage. As already noted, the hard part was finding Qf3, sitting on the hands, looking for better, finding none, and coming back to Qf3. |
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Feb-03-10
 | | sethoflagos: The best I can come up with is
20 … Qf3
21 gxf3 Nxf3+
winning back the queen. Now unless white is very careful he's going to start losing rooks as well eg 22 Kh1 Nxd2
23 a4 Nf3
24 axb5 ... (24 Rf1 Nb3 25 Ra2 Nbd2 traps rook)
24 ... Nxe1
so 22 Kg2 followed by Ng3 is pretty well forced to try and regain some control over f3. In the game, black forces exchanges until white is unable to defend his disconnected K-side pawns, so I guess it amounted to a winning advantage. |
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Feb-03-10
| | Morten: I went with 20.-, Qf3, but I thought the tricky variation was 21. Nf4, Qxf4 (black's queen is hanging, so 21.-, Rxf4 does not seem to work). 22. Qxf4, Rxf4. 23. g3, Re4. 24. Rxe4, dxe4. 25. gxh4, with material equality but black seems much better and 25.-, cxd4. 26. cxd4, Rd8 nets a pawn. |
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Feb-03-10
| | patzer2: Fritz indicates White can put up more resistance with 23. dxc5, but Black maintains control after 23...Nf3! 24. Rh1 bxc5 25. Ng3 Ng5!  .Not sure if White can hold, but in practical OTB play trying to defend a pawn down and with two weak isolated pawns is extremely difficult. |
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| Feb-03-10 | | Skylark: Qf3 was pretty easy to find, but I spent ages after finding it trying to justify Nf3+ straight away because I thought that the win of a pawn couldn't possibly be suitable puzzle material.. |
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| Feb-03-10 | | TheaN: Wednesday 3 February 2010
<20....?>
Target: 2:10;000
Taken: more than seven minutes and still not seeing anything decisive. Material: =
Candidates: Nf3†, <[Qf3!?]> -ML-
With the Queen en prise on f6 with check it's suggested to do something forcing (so Nxg2 and the likes loses). In fact, Nf3† might disrupt the position but not enough. So, I'm deciding that: <20....Qf3?! 21.gxf3 Nxf3† 22.Kg2 Nxd2 > might gain something for Black but as said I can't find that much decisive, time to check. |
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| Feb-03-10 | | TheaN: 3/3
Fair enough, but weird gains for a Wednesday puzzles. You'd expect it to mean an exchange at least. |
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| Feb-03-10 | | gofer: Now that I look at this after the school run, this doesn't seem so clear cut... 20 ... Qf3
21 Nf4 Qxf4 winning a piece
21 Ne3 Qxf2+ 22 Kh1 (Kh2 Nf3+ mating) Nf3 23 gxf3 Rxf3 24 Ng1 Rh3+ 25 Nxf3 Qxd2 winning Main Line
21 gxf3 Nxf3+
22 Kg2 Nxd2
23 Ng3 Kf7
Now by no means is this definitely winning for black, but it is okay. The point being that the king can protect Pe6
where as Rf8/Ra1 and Bb5 are all going to struggle. Yes the king becomes a target via Ne5+, but after Ke7 and Be8
black's position is sound and white's is a little flakey! The other important point is... ...what are black's
alternatives to 20 ... Qf3? Not moving the queen allows Nxf6+, so that's not an option. 20 ... Qf4/Qf7/Qe7 allows 21 Ng3 followed by 22 Ne5 where white seems to be better! Time to check... |
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Feb-03-10
| | euripides: 4...Qd7 is usually followed by Ba6 swapping off the light-squared bishops. Here White avoids this by Ba4 but this brings him no joy: as <Englishman> says, the 'bad' Black bishop becomes very good. |
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| Feb-03-10 | | UnsoundHero: This reminds me of a game I saw years ago, which is a striking example of how a pawn on g2 can be exploited: 1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 exd5 exd5 4 Nf3 Bd6 5 Nc3 Ne7 6 Bd3 Nbc6 7 0-0 Bg4 8 Nb5 Qd7 9 Bg5 f6 10 Bh4 0-0-0 11 Nxd6+ Qxd6 12 Bg3 Qd7 13 c3 g5 14 b4 Ng6 15 Qa4 Nf4 16 b5 Bxf3 17 bxc6 Qh3! |
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sac: 20...Qf3