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| Mar-27-07 | | Stonewaller2: <fm viraf> That's why chess is such an easy game, all you have to do is find good squares for your pieces and move them there. ;) |
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| Mar-27-07 | | MostlyAverageJoe: I still don't believe that 15. Qxd6 was the losing move. 17. Qf3 was. Nothing wrong with 16. Qa3, either. All that white needed after h4 was 17. Qc3 and now what? If the black takes hxg3, then Qxg3, and the problem is mostly defused, with queen pawns perhaps providing slight advantage for the white. After 15.Bg5, the bishop gets chased with f6, and nothing exciting for white is apparent, either... |
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| Mar-27-07 | | schnarre: It adds insult to injury!
(...Qxf1+, then 18. Kxf1 Rd1+, 19. Kg2 h3#)
...I had also been focused on the h-file, but the Queen sac is a good reminder for one to keep aware of the entire board. |
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| Mar-27-07 | | TrueBlue: I found it, but it took me like 5 minutes, not easy at all! f5 was my move of choice at one point (in order to allow Nf5 later on), but white can play Qg2 crushing all plans :( |
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| Mar-27-07 | | wals: Waah * did;t get it |
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| Mar-27-07 | | concreteengineer: Got this one rather quickly, just like yesterday. For those who complain that Monday and Tuesday puzzles are too easy, remember not everyone is a highly rated player. When I first started looking at chessgames.com, I couldn't even get Mondays! Now I get Monday and Tuesday and often Wednesday. Looking forward to adding Thursday! |
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| Mar-27-07 | | YouRang: <MostlyAverageJoe: I still don't believe that 15. Qxd6 was the losing move. 17. Qf3 was. > Looks right to me. 17. Qf3 appears to have been a panic move. The queen rushes over to 'help', but in fact stumbles into the king's only escape square, allowing the Qxf1+ .. Rd1+ .. h3# tactic to work. |
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| Mar-27-07 | | PhilFeeley: Looks like it's Queen sac week. This one was almost as easy as yesterday's. |
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| Mar-27-07 | | cjhasbrouck: Way too easy for a Tuesday
Come on Chessgames, this is just silly
You're making Chess seem like Candyland |
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| Mar-27-07 | | dzechiel: <MostlyAverageJoe: I still don't believe that 15. Qxd6 was the losing move.> While playing thru the game I physically winced at both 14 Bxh3 and 15 Qxd6, thinking both times, "That can't be good." While 17 Qf3 allowed the losing checkmate combination, I think the position was pretty lost by then anyway. White is badly underdeveloped and black is coming in on the h-file. If white hadn't grabbed the d-pawn, the mating combination would have been impossible and he might still be in the game. |
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| Mar-27-07 | | vibes43: vibes43: Right-on for a Tue puzzle, ChessGames. Thanks for another great one. For anyone complaining "too easy", you can enter Mon and Tue games at any point. For example, in this puzzle, without examening the board, check the starting move, go to the discussion page, and click on 16. Qa3. Could you anticipate the puzzle move from there? I'll bet Orlov did - along with any other white response. I doubt that I could have. If that's still too easy, go back 2 moves. There are lots of ways to study these easier puzzles to improve your game. For me though, just solving the puzzles as-is is a very enjoyable diversion from my daily routine. It would be interesting to hear from anyone starting from one step back from the recommended starting point. |
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| Mar-27-07 | | THE pawn: Wow, I hit a blind spot. I just completely dismissed the idea of taking the rook. All the way long I was looking to sac the queen at h2... |
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| Mar-27-07 | | Chess Classics: Yup.
<cjhasbrouck: I think I might stop coming to this site if early-week puzzles keep turning up harder and harder like this.You're excluding a huge chunk of your audience from the puzzles. It'd be such a simple task to include very easy puzzles at the front and very difficult puzzles at the back for a more inclusive puzzle range that everyone can enjoy, so I don't understand why there is a puzzle so difficult on a Tuesday There's no reason for Mondays and Tuesdays to be anything but simple 2, 3, maybe 4 move mating combinations or Queen hunt combinations Just my opinion>
From: S Lorenz vs A Orlov, 2001 The hilarious thing is that he's got it backwards. Last weeks was relatively easy, but this one took me a while. I kept looking at Qxh2.. Regards,
CC |
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| Mar-27-07 | | Tactic101: <cjhasbrouck> You are really weird. Earlier you were saying that the Monday and Tuesday puzzles were far too hard (about a month ago). Now, you're saying that they are far too easy. Make up your mind! |
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| Mar-27-07 | | MostlyAverageJoe: Some thoughts on the topic of puzzle difficulty (with an up-front acknowledgement that ELO-ratings of software are not to be trusted too much at low settings). I've set up some software I use for chess (Sigma 6.1.1) to run at 1200 ELO (it won't go any lower). It found the solution to today's puzzle in about 7 seconds. At 1400 ELO, it took a little over 2 seconds. At 1600, less than a second. For comparison, yesterday's puzzle at the same levels took respectively 76, 15, and 2 seconds. For HIARCS 10 engine, running at 1950 ELO, yesterday's puzzle took 4 seconds, and today's took 6. So, the results are inconclusive. According to one engine, the puzzles should've been switched, and according to another, they were ordered in the increasing level of difficulty. I am curious if anyone else with chess software that has settable ELO level could add to the experiment. Maybe we could arrive at some objective measures of puzzle difficulty. Come to think of it, I would expect chessgames.com to use some objective evaluation method for assigning the puzzles to the appropriate day of the week, no? Does anyone know how they do that? For what it's worth, HIARCS agrees with <cjhasbrouck> and took 30 seconds to solve the S Lorenz vs A Orlov, 2001 puzzle. So does Sigma (21 seconds at 1600 ELO, too long to bother waiting at lower levels). |
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| Mar-27-07 | | Skylark: I think regardless of the blunder 17. Qf3?? Black has a very strong initiative anyway, and definitely compensation for the pawn deficit. |
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| Mar-28-07 | | Tactic101: That is very odd. Today's puzzle was definately much harder. Not hard, but it took some thinking and calculating time. The fact that it took the computer so long to find the mate yesterday (76 and 15 seconds is a long time, even for a 1200-1400 player), but 7 and 2 seconds respectively for 1200 and 1400 rated players for today's puzzle is really strange. I don't think I can trust the computer in this matter. |
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| Mar-28-07 | | MostlyAverageJoe: <Tactic101: That is very odd. Today's puzzle was definately much harder> I agree (and so does my other reference, rated at 800 ELO - took about 2 minutes today versus a couple of seconds yesterday). Come to think of it, I'll repost my previous comment on The Kibitzer's Café; this puzzle is in its waning hours, and maybe a wider audience would contribute more thoughts. |
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| Mar-28-07 | | Fisheremon: <Skylark: I think regardless of the blunder 17. Qf3?? Black has a very strong initiative anyway, and definitely compensation for the pawn deficit.> Still 17.Qf3 deserves (!!) for creating a beautiful combo. Seemingly 17.Rb1 enough for equalizing. |
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| Mar-28-07 | | gambitfan: An amazing ending !
I did not see this "horizontal" mate... |
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| Mar-29-07 | | Rubenus: I was wrong again. It is mate in 9 moves. The solution: 1. Rb7 Qxb7 2. Bxg6+ Kxg6 3. Qg8+ Kxf5 4. Qg4+ Ke5
5. Qh5+ Rf5 6. f4+ Bxf4 7. Qxe2 Bxe2
8. Re4+ dxe4 9. d4# !!!! |
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Mar-29-07
 | | gawain: I enjoyed this one a lot! For a couple of minutes I was intensely focused on the g3 and h2 squares--and then in a flash the correct move came to me. |
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| Feb-26-09 | | WhiteRook48: what a great sacrifice |
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| Feb-23-12 | | bwarnock: <<dzechiel>: <MostlyAverageJoe: I still don't believe that 15. Qxd6 was the losing move.> While playing thru the game I physically winced at both 14 Bxh3 and 15 Qxd6, thinking both times, "That can't be good." While 17 Qf3 allowed the losing checkmate combination, I think the position was pretty lost by then anyway.> White can defend the position by playing 17. f4! (Δ 17...hxg3 18. ♕xg3) rather than 17. ♕f3? - it's not clear after that whether Black is winning or not - it doesn't look like it (I haven't found anything convincing for Black yet - for instance 17... exf4 18. ♗xf4 (not 18. ♘xf4 ♗d4+) 18... ♗xb2? (to divert the Queen) doesn't work since after 19. ♕xb2 hxg3 20. ♗xg3 the h-pawn is defended.) Also bad for Black is 17... exf4 18. ♗xf4 g5 ?! 19. ♗xg5! ♗xb2 20. ♕f3  <> |
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| Feb-23-12 | | Gilmoy: <Aristarchos: "a nice pawn mate" ...>
<Rubenus: ... composed by Dr. K. Bayer: white #9>
click for larger viewReinfeld's <1001 Ways to Checkmate> (Sterling, 1955), puzzle #279, is picturesque: 
click for larger viewIt's an immortal zugzwang epaulette with a pawn! |
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