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Jun-27-18 | | saturn2: I saw 18..QxN. White must have stared at the board some time not believing how trapped the king is after 19 hxQg3 g5 |
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Jun-27-18 | | Mayankk: Got it. A bolt out of the blue. The position looks so innocuous that you can barely believe that mate is around the corner. Morale of the story is to always count flight squares for the King. Once you notice that the Bishop controls all the dark flight squares and a Queen sac opens up the h file for hapless White King, the only question is how to bring your Rook over asap to deliver mate. And then you notice g4... |
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Jun-27-18 | | NBZ: Another puzzle that is reasonably easy to solve when posed as a puzzle, but is considerably harder to see at the board. Consider what White must have been thinking when he played 17. Nf5: "Black played Re6 and is threatening Qxg3. I will play Nf5, not fearing Rg6 Qe2 when my knight is nicely placed on f5. I am happy if he plays g6 because then I can just go back with Ng3 and though I have wasted a move the move g6 blocks his rook from joining the attack." He must have been thunderstruck when Qxg3 appeared at the board. I think partly what makes this hard is that after 17. ... g6, there is the "feeling" that it will take a long time to ever bring the rook into play on the kingside: first the queen has to move and then the g-pawn. And I suspect White saw lines such as 18. ... Qh4 19. a3 g5 20. Nf5! and was reassured that he was safe. |
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Jun-27-18 | | Granny O Doul: The only possible explanation I see for 10. Bxf6 is that White feared Black might play ...Ke7 so as to take back with the king. |
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Jun-27-18
 | | Dionysius1: Even 18.g4 defends with the double threat to the ♖ and ♕ if 18...gxf5 and if not 18...gxf5 then 19.♘g3 |
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Jun-27-18 | | stacase: What < NBZ> said. |
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Jun-27-18 | | Whitehat1963: Found the queen sac pretty quickly, as there are no other forcing moves to consider. Wednesdays are usually harder for me. Tomorrow won’t be so easy. |
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Jun-27-18 | | takchess: Qxn followed by gpawn clearance and Rook to h file.unstoppable. I think. |
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Jun-27-18 | | malt: At first glance 18...Q:g3,
Then went for 18...h5, looking back, if that g6 pawn weren't there,
then the penny dropped with a clang.
18...Q:g3 19.h3 (19.hg3 g5! ) |
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Jun-27-18 | | zb2cr: Managed to see this one. The key is ridding your thinking of the idead that it will take a lot of moves to get the Rook maneuvered to the h-file. I believe <NBZ> stated this as well. |
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Jun-27-18
 | | Richard Taylor: I saw this. The only thing is that in a real game I would spend a long time making absolutely sure there was no defence! But this theme is fairly common...
Beautiful idea though. |
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Jun-27-18
 | | patzer2: For today's Tuesday puzzle, 18...Qxg3! -+ wins a piece with the threat of 19. hxg3 g5 -+ forcing mate-in-three. Instead of 19. hxg3, which leads to a quick mate after 19...g5 -+, White can decline the Queen capture, and continue to play a piece down. One possibility is 18...Qxg3! 19. Qe2 Qh4 -+ (-4.73 @ 31 ply, Stockfish 8). However, against strong opposition this is hopelessly lost. P.S.: White's clear losing move was 18. Ng3??, allowing 18...Qxg3! -+. Instead, 18. g4 makes a fight of it as the Knight is untouchable due to a skewer threat against the Queen (e.g. 18...gxf5? 19. gxf5 Kh8 20. fxe6 ⩲ to ± or 18...gxf5 19. gxf5 Re7? 20. Rg1! Bxg1 21. Rxg1 +-). For Black to gain a strong advantage after 18. g4, the must find move is 18. g4 h5! ∓ (-1.10 @ 31 ply, Stockfish 8). Although 18. g4 h5! might be lost against near perfect play, White can still make a good fight of it for some practical drawing chances. A move earlier, White can improve over 17. Nf5? by regrouping with 17. Ne2 ⩱ (-0.38 @ 30 ply, Stockfish 8). Two moves earlier, White could have held it near level by playing 16. Qd2 = (-0.11 @ 29 ply, Stockfish 8) instead of 16. Ng3?! Qg5! ⩱ to ∓. |
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Jun-27-18 | | ndg2: The Karpov game someone mentioned previously: Karpov vs Taimanov, 1977 Again, the doubled g-pawn prevents any rescue |
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Jun-27-18 | | morfishine: Delektable Queen sac by Geller |
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Jun-27-18 | | Cheapo by the Dozen: Super easy to see. One just checks and rechecks because it's so hard to believe there isn't any defense. |
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Jun-27-18 | | mel gibson: Gee wizz - I didn't see that Black gains a free Knight and a file for its Rook. |
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Jun-27-18 | | An Engliishman: Good morning: <ChessHigherCat>
I believe this December will be 12 years. |
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Jun-27-18 | | WorstPlayerEver: Take my knight away |
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Jun-27-18 | | Marmot PFL: Q sac and g6, not too difficult but still very cool. |
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Jun-27-18
 | | Breunor: I'm with NBZ. I found this right away; but if somebody doesn't tell me 'Black to play and win' I know I wouldn't have seen this in a real game. |
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Jun-27-18 | | BOSTER: PUSH 15.f3 opening the diagonal for black bishop was a mistake. But if you wanted to move f2 pawn, was better to move to f4. |
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Jun-27-18 | | Marmot PFL: <I'm with NBZ. I found this right away; but if somebody doesn't tell me 'Black to play and win' I know I wouldn't have seen this in a real game.> In a real game I'm sure you would find it after playing 15...Re6, but white missed the point of that move, otherwise I think he would have played 16 f4 which gets his Q and Rf1 into the game. |
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Jun-27-18 | | CHESSTTCAMPS: Material is "even" but black's bishop is much stronger than the white knight in this situation, controlling dark squares in white's weakened castled position. Black only needs to expose the white king along the file: 18... Qxg3! 19.hxg3 (f4 Qxd3 leaves white a piece down; alternatively b4 ab can only delay the same consequences for one additional move) g5 20.Qxd6 Rxd6 21.Rf2 Bxf2 and 22... Rxh6# follows - a corridor mate, nice or nasty depending on your perspective. |
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Jun-27-18 | | Patriot: Seeing the immobile white king, it was then just a matter of opening the h-file and seeing if a rook was in position. So, <18...Qxg3 19.hxg3 g5> and mate is unstoppable. I like problems like this much more than the "insane" problems because these are much more logical to me. Many of the insane problems are logical but the combinations are usually based on elements more subtle. Since I can't calculate like a machine I'm not worried about positions that follow no logic where combinations cannot be deduced much less sensed. |
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Jun-27-18 | | lost in space: Got it quickly |
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