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Sep-24-10
 | | sackman: 31 .... Ne5+ !! what a great finish! Would make a good Wednesday-Thursday puzzle. |
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Nov-05-10
 | | Phony Benoni: Plenty of false leads. Spent some time on 31...Qe2+ and 32...Ba4. Then noticed 31...Nd2+ set up 32.Bxd2 Qe2+ 33.Kg2 Qf1+ 33.Kf3 Be2+ 34.Ke3--and darn it, can't check with the other bishop. So it must be 31...Ne5+! 32.d/fxe5 Qe2+ 33.Kg2 Qf1+ 34.Kf3 Be2+ 35.Ke3--and whichever pawn has captured on move 32 allows a bishop check with mate. Lovely! Of course, I now realize that 35.Ke3 is not possible since the bishop is still there, and 34...Be2 is mate. Well, I'm still taking 79.23% credit. Again, the tries are the hardest part. Once you see the power of the knight check, it's easy. |
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Nov-05-10
 | | patzer2: For today's Friday puzzle, 31...Ne5+! initiates mate-in-three. |
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Nov-05-10
 | | dzechiel: Black to move (31...?). Material even. "Difficult." The peculiar position of the white king (all adjacent dark squares occupied by his own forces, and all adjacent light squares unoccupied) almost forces the consideration of a knight sacrifice in order to activate black's light-squared bishop. At first I wanted to play 31...Nd2+
because it forks the white king and queen, but after
32 Bxd2
the white king now has running room, and our queen is under attack. No, I think the correct move is 31...Ne5+
This stops the white king from running to g4, so white has three legal moves: - 32 Kg2
- 32 dxe5
- 32 fxe5
But these all seem end quickly for white:
32 Kg2 Qf1#
or 32 dxe5 Be2+ 33 Kg2 Qf1#
or 32 fxe5 Be2+ 33 Kf4
On 33 Kg2 Qf1# is mate.
33...g5#
A picturesque checkmate. Time to check and see when white resigned. |
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| Nov-05-10 | | sfm: <sackman: ... Would make a good Wednesday-Thursday puzzle.>
Right. 3 checks with only one alternative reply is never "Very difficult". Maybe CG.com wants to compensate for the "Insane" puzzle on Wednesday. ;-) |
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| Nov-05-10 | | tacticalmonster: candidate: 31 Nd2+ and Ne5+
a) 31 Nd2+ 32 Bxd2 Qe2+ 33 Kg2 Qf1+ 34 Kf3 Be2+ 35 Ke3- white king escape b) 31 Ne5+ 32 dxe5 Be2+ 33 Kf1 Qf1#
c) 31 Ne5+ 32 fxe5 Be2+ 33 Kf4 g5# |
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| Nov-05-10 | | FabrikaLaHun: Like <dzechiel>, I liked 31...Nd2+. Thought I had all the lines figured in my head and was excited to get a Thursday puzzle. Guess I convinced myself it was good and stopped looking. Should have listened to Lasker:
“When you see a good move, look for a better one”
It does give White room to breathe. In my brief look at 31...Ne5+, I calculated that 32. fxe5 would give the WK room to move but missed the pretty follow up 33...g5# where the single pawn is supported by the black bishop. Nice puzzle! |
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| Nov-05-10 | | sfm: But to make it very difficult (or worse) it is just to move it back to 29.-,?
The winning move 29.-,Nxg4!! is not so easy to spot if you haven't seen the end. |
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| Nov-05-10 | | adamico: My eye was drawn to white's weak light squares. I then noticed that the knight can check, and then I went to work with calculating: 31.Ne5+
There are 3 white replies:
A. 32.Kg2 (The knight on e5 covers the g4 square!) Qf1# B. 32.dxe5 Be2+ 33.Kg2 Qf1#
C. 32.fxe5 (creating a new flight square on f4) Be2+ 33.Kf4 (33. Kg2 Qf1#) Bg5+! (the key move that makes this variation work) 34.Kxg5 h6+ 35.Kh4 (35.Kf4 g5#) g5+ 36.Kh3 Qf1# |
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| Nov-05-10 | | adamico: Lol, I made it even more complicated; 33. g5 is mate! |
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| Nov-05-10 | | Blunderdome: Noooo, I missed that the movement of the B gives white an escape square on Nd2+ Bxd2. Should've looked longer, I had the right idea. |
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Nov-05-10
 | | Jimfromprovidence: A better puzzle would have been move 29 with white to move.
click for larger view What threat did white see that made him play the losing 29 Kd3? instead of say 29 a4 or 29 Nxf6? |
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| Nov-05-10 | | LoveThatJoker: I found 31...Ba4, which is also pretty devastating. Not a forced mate, but still a big winner!
LTJ |
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| Nov-05-10 | | Eduardo Leon: Mate in three: 31... e5+! 32.fxe5  e2+, and now either (A) 33. g2  f1# or (B) 33.f4 g5#. Of course, 32.dxe5 just eliminates line (B) as a possibility, without changing the final result. |
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| Nov-05-10 | | Nullifidian: I guess this is chessgames.com making up for Wednesday's unwittingly too difficult puzzle by giving us a Wednesday problem on a Friday. I don't think I've ever seen a Friday puzzle that can be wrapped up so quickly and decisively with... 31... e5+
Including that step, it's mate in 3 at most.
32. g2 loses instantly to ...f1#
32.  fxe5 e2+ and White must either go to the square vacated by the pawn, 33. f4, and be mated by the g-pawn or go to the g2 square and be mated as above. (32. dxe5 ends in the same mate on the g2 square.) Like I said, remarkably simple and straightforward for a Friday. |
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Nov-05-10
 | | perfidious: My first idea was also 31....Nd2+, but I quickly realised that 31....Ne5+ fulfils the same function of opening the light-squared bishop's diagonal, without freeing the square e3 for White's king. |
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Nov-05-10
 | | David2009: A Filippov vs Ngoc Truongson Nguyen, 2010 Black 31...? First try (false trail): 31...Nd2+ 32 Bxd2 (to save the Queen) Qe2+ 33 Kg2 Qf1+ 34 Kf3 Be2+ 35 Ke3 Qg2 (threatening Qf3#) and now
36 Bb4 stops the mate. Second try: 31...Bb4 and now (A) 32 a3!? (ignoring all threats) Nd2+ 33 Bxd2 Qe2+ 34 Kg2 Qf1+ 35 Kf3 Bxd2 and Black is in a mating net;
(B) 32 g4 Nd2+ 33 Bxd2 Qe2+ 34 Kg3 Bxd2 35 a4 and White has created faint counter-play but 35...Ba6 and Black should get there first.
Time to check:
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Missed it. 31 ...Ne5+! mates quickly because the Be3 blocks the Black King. Learning point: Don't look just at the obvious attack! consider OTHER candidate moves. |
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Nov-05-10
 | | OBIT: I have my doubts this puzzle should be rated "very difficult", but maybe I think that because 31...Ne5+ was the first move I looked at. I picked that move over 31...Nd2+ because it takes away g4 as an escape square for the king, so I have one less reply to worry about. As for the valid replies, I could see the only king move is an easy mate in two: 32. Kg2 Qf1+ 33. Kf3 Be2#. So, the knight has to be taken, but 32. dxe5 gives essentially the same mate in two, just switching the moves: 32. dxe5 Be2+ 33. Kg2 Qf1#. That leaves 32. fxe5, but even this move isn't much different from the other two, since f4 doesn't provide an escape square: 32. fxe5 Be2+ 33. Kf4 (33. Kg2 Qf1#) g5#. Maybe I got lucky because I happened to hit on the correct move right away, but I'd rate this puzzle "medium" difficulty at best. |
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Nov-05-10
| | OBIT: I'm not surpised to see other posters have already said this puzzle is too easy for a Friday. Yep, this could be payback for Wednesday. :) |
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| Nov-05-10 | | rilkefan: Thought about ...e5 threatening e4 with Nxe5 to come for a second, then decided to cut out the middleman to save the bother of looking to see what white could reply. |
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Nov-05-10
 | | An Englishman: Good Evening: Once you realize that the only thing preventing ...Be2X is the Black Knight on c4, the only question becomes how best to get the horse out of the way. |
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| Nov-05-10 | | Roger Krueger: My first Friday solve ever... so it must be a Wednesday/Thursday :-) |
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Nov-05-10
 | | Once: Today's puzzle is all about infiltration.
What most people forget about the original Terminator is that it was designed as an infiltration machine. It was built to sneak inside fortified human bunkers, to con its way past the guards, to get in and behind the enemy. That's why it has the living flesh and tissue of an Austrian bodybuilder wrapped around a metal skeleton. It may be built like a brick privy, but it's also a sneaky-beaky ninja type. And that makes you wonder if the machines thought this one through. I mean, if they really wanted to make an infiltration robot, wouldn't they have made it look a little less tough? Say, give it a semi-bald head with a bit of a comb-over, pudgy double chins and a bit of a belly. And couldn't they have made a voice box that spoke recognisable English? Perhaps with a lithp or a st...stutter? Heck, they built a disguised robot that both looked and sounded like a robot... Rewind to the position after 28.... Kg7
click for larger viewIt's white to play and allow a T800 to infiltrate. Black has just played Kg7, utching his king a little closer to the action, getting ready for a possible exchange of pieces into an endgame and protecting his Nf6. All good sensible stuff. And white thinks, "hey, that looks like a good plan. I'll do the same". He plays 29. Kf3? Ooops. Now we get the aforementioned infiltration with a special ops queen parachuting into e1. 29...Nxg4 30. Nxg4 Qe1 
click for larger viewAnd here we have the big reveal. "Sarah Connor?" .... "Uzi 9mm" And amazingly white is busted. He can't grab the bishop on b5 - 31. Qxb5? Qf1+ and Nd2+ wins the queen by a discovery. Black is also threatening h5 to kick away the knight supporting the Be3. And we have seen what happened when white tried 31. Nd2. But frankly, nothing else would have worked either. Once a terminator has you in its sights, it's game over, baby. "Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead." |
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| Nov-05-10 | | sesha: Isn't 31 Bd3 much better than 31 Nf2? All the immediate mating threats are taken care of. White doesn't even lose any material. |
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Nov-05-10
 | | Sastre: <sesha: Isn't 31 Bd3 much better than 31 Nf2? All the immediate mating threats are taken care of. White doesn't even lose any material.> 31.Bd3 h5 32.Nf2 Qxe3+ 33.Kg2 Nd6 wins for Black. |
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