|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 1 OF 2 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
Jun-17-03
 | | Honza Cervenka: If 19...exd5, then 20.Bxd5+ Qxd5 21.Rd1 Qe5 22.Qb3+ Be6 (forced) 23.Nxe6 Rxd1+ 24.Rxd1 Na5 (or 24...Kh8 25.Ng5 Qf6 26.Nf7+ Kg8 27.Ne5+ Kh8 28.Nd7  ; 24...Kf7 25.Ng5 Kg6 26.Nf7 Qe4 27.Rd6+ Kh5 28.Qd1+ Qg4 29.f3 ) 25.Qa2 Qc3 26.Qd5 Qb3 27.Qd7 [or 27.Nxg7+ Qxd5 (27...Kxg7? 28.Qe5+ leads to the mate in few moves) 28.Rxd5 Kxg7 29.Rxa5 a6 30.Rxf5 ] 27...Qc3 28.Ng5 Qf6 29.Qd5+ Kh8 30.Nf7+ Kg8 31.Ne5+ Kh8 32.Nd7 etc. Typical Alekhine...:-) |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | zooter: This positions shows exactly why I can never think like Alekhine or probably become a GM :( I cannot see anything even remotely forcing and would probably settle for d5 Time to check |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | zooter: Well, I did notice
19.d5 exd5 20.Bxd5+ Qxd5 21.Rd1 Qe5 but then the position was too dense for me to visualize a followup... Looking at the post by <honza cervenka> I doubt any of our regular posters will get even remotely close to move 32 :-) |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | MostlyAverageJoe: Huh? Is this a Sunday already?
Perhaps CG decided that a payback was necessary for the easy ones in the past few days... |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | dzechiel: White to play (19?). Material even. "Difficult."
My screen saver has kicked in twice, meaning that I have been looking at this position for 10 minutes, but I still don't have a concrete plan. My initial impulse was to push 19 d5 (and that may still be the key move), but so far all I see that doing is losing a pawn. I'm also drawn to the position of the knight, and the partly open a2-g8 diagonal, naturally seeing the Philidor's Mate possibilities. I also have looked at 19 Qb3 and 19 Qc4 to get the queen on the diagonal prior to playing d5, but I don't have a good response to 19...Na5. That makes me consider 19 Qa2, which gets the queen on the diagonal without problems from the knight, but I'm not sure what I would do about 19...h6. I'm going to look at my first idea, but it may not pan out. 19 d5 exd5 20 Rd1 Ne7
OK, while looking at the above position, my screen saver kicked in a THIRD time, however, this spurred me to start looking at EVERY possible move, and I FINALLY found what must be the winning idea! 19 d5!
My original impulse seems to have been correct.
19...exd5 20 Bxd5+!
White recovers the pawn with check. If black moves his king to the corner with 20...Kh8 then 21 Nf7+ picks up a whole queen. And if 20...Kf8 then 21 Nxh7+ also makes for a double-ugly. What else can black try? 20...Qxd5
And now the move I had so much trouble finding...
21 Rd1!
Driving the black queen from the a2-g8 diagonal. I think black has to play 21....Qxd1+
here, as any other move allows white to play 22 Qa2+ and the Philidor's Mate mentioned above is in play. 22 Rxd1
and I'm assuming that white goes on to win (he is Alekhine, after all). It's long past time to check, I'm eager to see if I got this one right. |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | dzechiel: Well, this didn't go exactly as I planned, but I'm pleased that I finally was able to make the key move work. Not exactly looking forward to Saturday and Sunday. :D |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | mkrk17: I did see d5 exd5, Bxd5 Qxd5, Rd1 Q~ and then white gives the philidors mates. BUt it took me looooong time to realize that there is no other magic bullet around. |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | Woody Wood Pusher: Well I got 19.d5 and the main variations. I gave up calculating the line played when I realized white would go a pawn up with better play. However, I do think this was difficult for a Friday.
It's instructive how white surrounds the a-pawn and decides the game. My chess computer seems to have some problems with this position and likes 19.Qc5 ,Qe7 20.Qxe7,Nxe7 21.Rc7,Nd5 (+0.8 evaluation). Anybody looked at it with a powerful program? Did anybody look at 19.Nxe5!?,Bxe5 20.d5,Bxd5 21.Rd1,Qf6 I couldn't get it to work though lol |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | Woody Wood Pusher: <dz><21....Qxd1+ here, as any other move allows white to play 22 Qa2+ and the Philidor's Mate mentioned above is in play.> I think black can play 21..Qe5 and avoid the immediate mate. e.g.22.Qa2+,Be6 23.Nxe6,Rxd1+ 24.Rxd1,Qf6 25.Rd7 with a winning advantage but no Philidor's mate. |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | TCS: In evaluating these positions you realize quickly that calculating alone won't help. So what's worth exploiting to get the most out of the position? Key points are
1. White defensively is looking OK - no immediate threats
2. Overloading on c6
3. King on diagonal with just a pawn for protection
4. Knight is threatening Nf7 and if the King was on h8 then that would win the Black Queen. So what's the plan?
To me opening up the a2-g8 diagonal and getting at the King to create pressure seems to be the one. The best move for that is... 19.d5
So how can Black stifle this plan?
19...exd5
This plays into the plan
20.Bxd5+
King can't go to h8 becuase of Key Point 4 :-) King can't go to f8 becuase of Nh7+ winning a pawn and adding to the pressure of King how has few defensive safe places. The only other choice is to move the Knight away
19...Ne7
This looks OK as it removes the threat and threatens the pawn but 20.dxe6
This still allows white to open the position and with 21...Bxe6
22.Rd1
this now looks very unpleasant for Black with the threat on the Queen, the White Bishop threatening b7 and Blacks pieces are uncoordinated. 22...Qe5
looks like the only reasonable move in which case
23.Bxb7
wins a pawn as the black rooks must stay together becuase of the threat of Rxd8 The next stage is to simplify by exchanging Knight for Bishop and its looking good for White. Time to find out if this is a good plan...
|
|
| Sep-26-08 | | Once: There are two strands to this puzzle. After d5, black can either take the pawn or move his knight away. <Dzechiel> has shown part of what happens if he takes the pawn. This is what Fritz makes of that line. 19. d5 exd5 20. Bxd5+ Qxd5 21. Rd1 Qe5 22. Qa2+ Be6 23. Nxe6
Rxd1+ 24. Rxd1 Qf6 25. Nd8+ Kh8 26. Rd6 Qe7 27. Nf7+ Kg8 28. Rd7 Qf6 29. Qd5 
click for larger viewWhite has a great position (eval +2.44), but black is defending against the smothered mate and material is level. On the other hand, if Black retreats the knight we have the sequence in the game leading to this position after 21... Qe5. 
click for larger viewNow the rook on b8 is overworked. It has to defend the b7 pawn and the Re8. The threat of the smothered mate is still hanging in the air. Alekhine follows his normal working methods and plays 22. Bxb7. But he could equally have prefaced this with either 22. Nxe6 or 22. Rxe8. In human mode, I found d5 but barely scratched the surface of all these complications. |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | AlfieNoakes: Am pleased that after scrutinising the position, I opted for d5, seeing that exd and qxd were both good for white. Didn't consider the knight defence though. |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | Manic: What happens after 19...Ne5 or 19...Na5 ?
For some reason I only saw these two retreats and not 19...Ne7. |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | Alphastar: Another nice combination by your friendly neigbourhood Alekhine-man!
Alekhine-man, Alekhine-man, does whatever an Alekhine-man can!
Spins a combo any size, catches mistakes just like flies, Alekhine-man! \0/ |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | whiteshark: One of this rare occasions where Alekhine sees a lot more than me. :D |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | kirchhoff: Too hard for me. I kept considering and rejecting 19. g4. I knew I had to clear the a2-g8 diagonal, but didn't see the key 21. R-d1. Thank you <dzechiel> for your post. |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | Once: <Manic: What happens after 19...Ne5 or 19...Na5 ?> Good question. This is what a quick Fritz analysis finds: 19... Ne5 20. dxe6 Bxe6 21. Rd1 Qe7 22. Nxe6 Qxe6 23.Qc7 Qf6 24. Bxb7 
click for larger viewWhite wins a pawn, as in the game.
19... Na5 20. dxe6 Bxe6 21. Rd1 Qe7 22. Nxe6 Qxe6 23.Qc7 Qb6 24. Qe5 Nc6 25. Qxf5 
click for larger viewWhite also wins a pawn - on f5 this time.
Not sure if these are the optimal lines - Fritz spent quite a while changing his mind and swapping from move to move - so some back-sliding probably required. Maybe this is one of those positions where precise calculation is less important than seeing that white has better-posted pieces and so needed to open the game to let them out? |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | lanos: I wonder what is the answer for 32...Qb5 ? |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | mjk: <Ianos> Do you mean 31...♕b5 32.♖xh6+ |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | ozmikey: One of my favourite games. It takes a special kind of vision from the "set" position - without being told that there's a combination of sorts there - to see that the Philidor's Legacy routine is on because the queen can be dominated along the a2-g8 diagonal. Typical dynamic play from Alekhine! |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | TrueBlue: difficult one ....
19. d5 Ne7 20. dxe6
Bxe6 21. Rd1 Qe5 22. Nxe6 Qxe6 23. Rxd8+ Rxd8 24. Bxb7 a5 is what I got, really difficult puzzle ...
|
|
| Sep-26-08 | | TrueBlue: hmm, I don't believe that played line is better ... |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | Marmot PFL: I didn't look ahead as far as 22.Bxb7 but found the line with 19.d5 ed Bxd5+ Qxd5 Rd1 Qe5 Qb3+ etc, which is enough before going off to work. This is typical in Alekhine games that one combination is followed quickly by another. |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | JG27Pyth: First glance: Oh d5 is screaming to be pushed.
45 minutes later: Ah yes, I believe the move is d5.
(Correspondence chess is turning me into a glacially slow player) Philidor's Legacy has been mentioned -- which is actually from Lucena's book... not to be confused with the Lucena position, which <isn't> in Lucena's book.) I had Nxe6 first then Bxb7... it's equivalent I believe. It's hard to keep from second guessing oneself when you've gotten deep into the combination with just a pawn to the good and the positional advantage doesn't seem to have big pay-off. Felt like a Saturday. |
|
| Sep-26-08 | | sataranj: yawn!! |
|
 |
|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 1 OF 2 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
Kibitzing
Annotations by 