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Mikhail Tal vs NN
Simul (1973) (exhibition), ENG
Alekhine Defense: Four Pawns Attack (B03)  ·  1-0

ANALYSIS [x]

FEN COPIED

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Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 3 OF 3 ·  Later Kibitzing>
Sep-13-22  Chessius the Messius: 16. Nxf7 Nxg4 😁
Sep-13-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  Teyss: Couldn't find the solution, tried 16.Bg5+?, 16.N6f5+?, 16.Qxe6+?? before realising the f2 Pawn was gone.

<Dionysius1> In case you're wondering, the final position will be a half-epaulette mate ;)

Sep-13-22  Chessius the Messius: Blinded by the Knights
Sep-13-22  TheaN: <TheaN: (...) though I'm guessing there is a 'solution' with a pawn on f2.>


click for larger view

Decided to follow up on this myself (was kind of expecting others to but oh well), and it kind of shows Black is toast regardless, as White's a piece up and has the move. How to start though, is not as easy. White to play, 16.?.

Sep-13-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  Teyss: <TheaN> "What if" is a Jimfromprovidence specialty, that's why we didn't answer, we're not used to this from you ;)

Honestly don't know, would hesitate between 16.Bg5+ and 16.N6f5+ as posted above. Maybe go for 16.N6f5+ because the N is toast anyhow and looks less complex. There are many variations but the most logical looks like 16...exf5 17.Nxf5+ (since it's not pinned now, saves the N and gains P with tempo) K moves 18.Q moves. Material is about equal but Black's King is exposed.

As a side note, how did you manage to get the diagram above with the f2 Pawn? You cannot modify the existing board, can you?

Sep-13-22  nalinw: "Blinded by the Knights" - great pun - submit it immediately!
Sep-13-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  takchess: Love these Tal games where every thing is en prise. Rxf7 removes the pawn (guard) and the queen takes on e8+ soon to finish the job at f7#
Sep-13-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  chrisowen: Lay jumped its hunt wavey Rxf7+ arrive hoh its hoof adept net afford prickle cackle cum Rxf7+ gab :)
Sep-13-22  Hercdon: Aren�t Tal games great?
Sep-13-22  TheaN: <Teyss: Honestly don't know, would hesitate between 16.Bg5+ and 16.N6f5+ as posted above. Maybe go for 16.N6f5+ because the N is toast anyhow and looks less complex. There are many variations but the most logical looks like 16...exf5 17.Nxf5+ (since it's not pinned now, saves the N and gains P with tempo) K moves 18.Q moves. Material is about equal but Black's King is exposed.>

That's about it, 16.N6f5+ (N4f5+ similar) exf5 17.Nxf5+ and Black's forced onto the d-file, after which defending the knight on d3 is enough for a crushing position. 16.Bg5+ works too but is a bit more risky 16....Kxd6 17.Nb5+ Kd7 18.Qg3 f6 and SF gives this as +7 but it's more vague at first glance.

<As a side note, how did you manage to get the diagram above with the f2 Pawn? You cannot modify the existing board, can you?>

Nope, you can't, using another free website :>

Sep-13-22  jes47: I wish they had presented this as a hard puzzle starting at move 14. Tal had to have seen the next three moves. A truly brilliant combination.
Sep-13-22  whiteshark: Tuesday-related tunes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1_... ♫♪ ♫ ♫♪♪
Sep-13-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  PawnSac: <keypusher: I think the real winners here are us spectators.>

You're so right about that kp

Sep-13-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  PawnSac: < TheaN: <<Teyss: As a side note, how did you manage to get the diagram above with the f2 Pawn? You cannot modify the existing board, can you? >>

Nope, you can't, using another free website :>

YES! You can!

Sep-13-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  PawnSac: < Teyss >

Go to the game at the top. Look for
< PGN viewer: pgn4web SET >

click on the down arrow at the right end of the viewer box. Your's may be set to Olga by default. Change it to the pgn4web then click SET

When pgn4web viewer is set, place your mouse arrow over the b8 square [black's queen knight is on that square]. It will show

< B8: Show this position FEN string >

click on it. A pop-up window will show the FEN string. Clip and paste it in your kibitz box to show that board position. I set my board to the position after blacks 15th.

White to play:
16. __?__


click for larger view

Now.. I took the same FEN string and added a 7 at the end of the first series of numbers to make it a bad FEN so you can see it. Here's how the FEN works. The chess board is an 8x8 grid. there are 8 sets of "rows" separated by forward slashes. The 7th row is PP4PP

[bad FEN: rn1q3r7/pp2kppp/3Np3/2b1n3/3N2Q1/3B4/PP4PP/R1B2RK1]

The 7th row is PP4PP so make this row read PP3PPP

This will edit the fen and add the pawn! capital letters are white pieces, lower case are black, and the numbers are empty squares from left to right


click for larger view

and here ya go! your board now has a pawn on f2! all you had to do was edit two digits!

Sep-13-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  PawnSac: the FEN string loads the board from the top left 1 row at a time and ends at bottom right. The first set of digits in the fen are this:

rn1q3r

r =black rook, n=black knight, 1 empty square, q=black queen, 3 empty squares, r=black rook! thats row 1. Understand?

Sep-13-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  PawnSac: The rn1q3r string loads the first row at top.
Now, I took that string and added slash 8 slash 8 7 times to make..

rn1q3r/ 8/ 8/ 8/ 8/ 8/ 8/ 8
without the spaces between


click for larger view

Sep-13-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  PawnSac: It's easy! You can create your own boards.
Here's the Tal position with board turned around


click for larger view

Sep-13-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  PawnSac: This is one of the reasons I love chessgames.com so much. You can give move series with commentary, show endgame positions, or take a game and alter the board to show a different move. I may go to some other site, like freechess.org [free internet chess server] or ICC [internet chess club] or others to actually PLAY chess, but chessgames is always home for me.
Sep-14-22  LivBlockade: <nalinw: "Blinded by the Knights">

See Aronian vs Gelfand, 2011

Sep-14-22  Chessius the Messius: Hehe for the record, I did not cheat 😎
Sep-14-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  Teyss: <PawnSac> Many thanks for your explanations, much appreciated. I knew about FEN (just so you don't think I'm completely stupid ;) but never thought about correcting the string to adjust the position. Very useful.

Didn't know about pgn4web shortcuts either, there are plenty actually. Just in case you don't know (you probably do), you can also access FEN under Olga with Settings and Copy FEN.

Sep-14-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  Teyss: <PawnSac: This is one of the reasons I love chessgames.com so much.> Same for me, there are many knowledgeable and friendly users.

To turn the board around, you type the string reversed, right? So R1B2RK1 at the end = 1KR2B1R at the beginning, etc. Or is there a quicker way?

Sep-14-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  PawnSac: Teyss:

Yes you can reverse the order of the strings!
In the case of the Tal in reverse I simply clicked on the e7 square to reverse the view, then typed it out manually just for practice. It took less than 1 minute.

I wish you could use the e7 flip and then b8 for a reversed fen, but it won't do that.

There are various websites that generate FEN strings or show them. chesshold.com has a board viewer, and you can manually play through a game and watch the fen change with each move. kinda cool. but I prefer to just do everything here as I described.

Notice also that you can enter a FEN into the chessgames search function. see the front page note at the top. That's a cool feature, especially if you're looking for a particular game position but can't remember the opening or players

And btw, nobody thinks you're completely, or even partly stupid. There are always new things to learn. I have picked up a lot of cool things from users here.

Sep-15-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  Teyss: <PawnSac> Thanks again for the tips notably the search function, very handy. Have a nice day.
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