The fantasy position is a queen mate somewhere along white's glorious g file, say Qg8#. Something like this:

click for larger view

To get there, we need to deflect the black bishop and queen, plus our own g3 rook.

So 34. Bxh6 deflects the bishop. Bxh6. 35. Rg8+ clears the g file for the queen and forces black's king onto a square where the knight can join the fun.

35. ... Kh7. 36. Nf6+ Qxf6 deflects the queen from the defence of g8 - two thirds of our fantasy position.

Now for full marks, you need to see the next move. White has to get rid of his own rook on g8 and replace it with the queen. 37. Rh8+ Kxh8 38. Qg8# and we have arrived at Xanadu.

Or 37. ... Qxh8 38. Qg6#

The first two moves are pretty easy, considering you open up the line for the battery on the g-file and force the king to h7 where it might be checked by the knight on f6.

The first thing I noticed about the position after 34. Bxh6 Bxh6 35. Rg8+ Kh7 is that if the rook on g8 is taken off, white has a cute mate with Qg8+! Qxg8 Nf6+ Kh8 Rxg8#. I then tried to make this work, but after for example Rh8+ Kxh8, Nf6 isn't check anymore.

So instead of the pretty finale in the game, I thought 35. Rh3!? would be winning easily. Ofcourse, the threat is Rxh6+ Qh7 Qg8#, and 35. ..Kh7 is again answered by 36. Qg8+! and mate. Black's best seems to be 35. ..Rg5! when after 36. Rxh6+ Kg7 37. Rxe6! Rxg2 38. Rxg2+ black will lose his queen:

34. Bxh6 Bxh6(Declining the sack leads to a the king bieng too open and blacks pieces bieng to passive e.g. 34...Rh5 35. Bxg7 Nxg7 36. Rf3 and blacks queen is suddenly out of playable moves)

Candidates (34.): Bxh6

34.Bxh6 Bxh6 [else, drop an important P and permit activation of Be3 without compensation]

I like to see the first move, work out possibilities until I know it has good chances, then turn to playing the game through to the game position, then guessing each correct response to whatever the opponent comes up with.

Many times on Thursday, Friday, Sat and certainly Sunday, even if I had the first move, I hadn't considered the opponent's best reply, but playing through, I consider myself successful if I can predict the game continuation on my side each move.

By those criteria, I got it today!

And I keep going beyond the final position with Qx N, 37.Rh8. Finis.

Candidates: 34. Bxh6

<PinnedPiece> That is no good IMO. You are sacrificing the bishop; you have to know before you do it that the sacrifice is sound. If you do not then you are just guessing and hoping which is not a good recipe especially when you are playing OTB and no one puts out a sign that says "this is a puzzle position".

Of course, and to contradict myself, here is what Kasparov said about his position agianst Topalov in 1999:

<When I made this move, I saw only the repetition of the moves and the opportunity to continue the attack, though the whole picture of the combination was not yet clear. I already saw the idea 30…Rd6 31.Rb6, but I still could not get rid of the thought that all lines should be checked to the very end. Maybe Black will find some opportunity for defense. Topalov spent about 15 minutes thinking.

I walked around the hall – rather, I fled – and at these feverish moments it seemed to me that there were very few participants and that most of the games had already been finished. My mind worked only in one direction, and one of these moments brought me the image of the whole cluster of various lines. I saw the move 37.Rd7. I don't even remember how this line was formed in my head, but I saw the whole line up to the end. I saw the journey of the black King after 36.Bf1, 37.Rd7 and I could no longer suppress my excitement, because at that same moment I realized that the move 24…Kb6 ruined the whole construction.>

So maybe you are right:).

If Black captures the pawn with 32...exf4, then the immediate clearance of the long diagonal enables White to play the winning pin combination 33. Rxg7! Qxg7! 34. Bxd4 Rg5 35. Qf2 .

If Black declines the capture, as in the game, then White plays 33. exf5 when White's strong threats from this post (e.g. bringing the Knight to f5 for a decisive attack) force its recapture. Of course the capture of the pawn on e5 (i.e. 33...Rxe5) comes at the cost of removing one or more of the King's defenders and allowing the decisive follow-up 34. Bxh6! (today's puzzle solution).

Yes! He has described my thinking perfectly!

In my dreams.

The line in the game as played out is straightforward and fairly easy to find (for a Friday).

What makes this position a Friday level are the lines shown by <patzer2> should black decline the bishop sacrifice.

We've got a R-Q-R battery on the g-file dying to be unsprung. I'd love to clear away the bishop, so 34.Bxh6 is an obvious try. Black seems to have little choice except 34...Bxh6 (e.g. if 34...Bf8 then 35.Qh3 looks deadly). Now comes 35.Rg8+, and the rook of course cannot be taken, so 35...Kh7 is forced.

That part was easy to figure out, but now we've got to keep a clear picture of this position in our heads to figure out the continuation. I couldn't see anything else to do with rooks or queen, but I've got a knight in checking range, so 36.Nf6+ forcing 36...Qxf6.

Here, I spent a lot of time doing "what next?" analysis. I've just wagered a bishop and knight that I can make this attack stick, but there seems to be a shortage of unguarded squares near the black king.

I noticed that the weakest squares were on the 8th rank and on g6, while g7 is heavily guarded. I also noticed that my next move had to be forcing, since anything else would give black time to defend.

This pretty much left me witht he crazy move 37.Rh8+. It's forcing enough, and I could see that black's only choice was 37...Qxh7 (...Kxh7 38.Qg8#). For some reason it took me a couple loops to visualize that I had 38.Qg6#, as if g6 were still guarded by the queen or that the queen wasn't blocking the king's escape to h8.

The final nuance:

36 f6+ xf6 37 h8+!! xh8 (or xh8 38 g8#) 38 g6# .