First thoughts: f6 N is in the way. Find a way to be rid of it?

Today I gave the position a good thought for almost the entire day. (I took the home page diagram on a piece of paper as I had the rare luxury of road travel in the passenger seat).

To find ways and means to dislodge the f6 N, the defender of h7 P(attacked twice, defended twice) looked to be the key.

As f6 N is pinned to defense of h7; when I play 17. Nxd5 Black has only 2 choices; to retake with his B or the 'e' P. He takes with the P and loses the e7 B to the R (after 18. Nxc6). Between the devil and the deep sea.

Let us say he uses the B. This gives a surprise opening of clobbering the enemy Q, R and f6 N with the same stick; the other N to d7. My aim is much humbler though; just take the f6 N.

Here the game should come to a 1-0 conclusion.

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You are this sites Puzzling Master.

We have a natural tendency to think that we can fill ourselves up with chess knowledge as if we were filling a car with gas. If it takes ten minutes to fill half the tank it will be twenty minutes to fill it all the way up. A linear relationship between time and success.

The reality is that chess understanding comes as a combination of globs and osmosis. The globs are when we suddenly have a lightbulb moment and something that seemed difficult suddenly becomes clear.

The osmosis is when we don't realise that we are learning. Understanding sneaks up on you while you are not looking for it. And you can't remember when you learned this or that thing, except that you find that you know it.

It's a bit like going bald. You rarely notice the first few hairs going until there comes a time when the barber doesn't bother to ask you which side you part your hair on.

Here's a line I found that avoids (at least as crafty plays it) giving black pawns...

And that gets me to wondering why. Forgive me for venturing a little theory. As usual, it might be rubbish, it might be interesting. But that's the lucky bag dip you take with theories.

In many of our puzzles it is fairly obvious what we are trying to do. We might have a crushing mating attack and the goal is to give checkmate. Or we have a prince charles pawn that is just itching for a coronation. And those are the ones that we mostly agree as easy.

But today's puzzle isn't quite like that. Apart from the queen-bishop attack on h7, it is not clear what we want to get out of this position. There isn't one clear target that screams "hit me, hit me". With or without a rhythmn stick.

So what do we do when we haven't got a clear target? Now you need to allow me a little digression. Luke and Han are disguised as Imperia Stormtroopers (shades of today's GOTD) are sneaking around the Death Star looking for Princess Leia. If R2 hadn't told them where to go, how would they have found her?

That's easy - they would have gone down corridors that said "Private - keep out" and opened doors that said "Restricted - Sith Lords only". They would have no ideas where these doors or corridors went, but it was bound to be somewhere interesting if the empire didn't want you to go there.

When we don't know what to do we should focus on doing things the enemy doesn't want us to do. You should always try to walk a mile in your enemy's shoes. That way you are a mile away from your enemy.

And you have his shoes.

So how do we take black's shoes away in our puzzle position? Well we have to be excited about the Nf6. If that knight wasn't there we would mate more quickly than you could say "that's no moon."

And how do we do something that black doesn't want us to do? We threaten this knight. How can we do this? A quick process of elimination shows us that 17. Nxd5 is interesting because black can't reply 17... Nxd5. And when we are white we like moves that black can't play.

Once we have 17. Nxd5 in our targeting scanners we notice that black can't reply 17...Bxd5 either because of the reply 18. Nd7. And that gets us really interested because there are now two responses to 17. Nxd5 that black can't play. And, as we have said, anything that black can't play is good for us.

And when we work out that 17...exd5 isn't possible either, we see that 17. Nxd5 is more exciting than a gold bikini.

And here's the rub - we didn't find 17. Nxd5 because we knew it was going to be good for us. We found it because we were doing what black didn't want us to do.

I would hazard a guess that the folks who found today's puzzle to be easy are either instinctively or consciously aware that we should examine moves that our opponent might not want us to play. And the folks who found it hard might be wondering what the move is "for".

However, if

Gordie Howe = Mr. Hockey

sevenseaman = Mr. Game Continuation

I guess my mistake was my prejudice that this is not a puzzle. Or maybe I forgot Heisman's advice "When picking candidates,start with checks,captures, and threat for both sides".

Or maybe A.Soltis' advice caught my brain ,who said something like this: <if you don't see tactics immediately, don't worry- you willn't see it at all>.

To make this story short-I didn't find the solution.

Plies? Its well-nigh impossible to think beyond 4-6 moves at a time. Some times the flow builds up.

He did a lot to popularize the game in the United States, so they called him Mr. Hockey.

My analogy is that just as Gordie Howe is called Mr. Hockey, you are Mr. Game Continuation.

Nothing negative there.

<1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Bd3 Nc6 5.c3 Nf6 6.Bf4 Bg4 7.Qb3 Na5 8.Qa4+ Bd7 9.Qc2 e6 10.Nf3 Qb6 11.Nbd2 Bb5 12.0-0 Bxd3 13.Qxd3 Be7 14.Ne5 0-0 15.Ndf3 Rac8 16.Ng5 h6>

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<17.Nd7> 1-0

I rememember my opponent being as surprised as I was. Several times he reached out his hand to make a move, only to pull it back. And, before you start laughing at him, I should point out he was rated 2227 at the time and is now a FIDE Master. Accidents will happen.

Later today, something hit me. This is just a variation of the infamous "Siberian Trap" in the Smith-Morra Gambit. After <1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 dxc4 4.Nxc3 Nc6 5.Nf3 e6 6.Bc4 Qc7 7.Qe2 Nf6 8.O-O Ng4!? 9.h3??>

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And <9...Nd4!> shows exactly the same idea as in today's POTD.

Now, the ironic thing is that I took up the Smith-Morra several years after playing the <Nd7> shot. And, like most Smith-Morra players, I fell for the Siberian Trap more than once. Why? Hadn't I mastered the tactical idea involved?

Evidently not. For one thing, I've always been better at seeing my own tactical shots than my opponents. But more to the point is that while I knew one tactical <pattern>, I did not fully grasp the tactical <idea> involved.

Often, these two concepts are used synomously, but I think a distinction can be made. A tactical idea involves a certain relationship between pieces, while a tactical pattern is one way this idea can be expressed on the chessboard. The idea in today's POTD is not the move <Nd7>, but <knight forks queen and another piece which is defending mate>.

Let me try another example:

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Almost everyone will solve this immediately. I could jazz it up with all sorts of other pieces, but both the idea (Smothered Mate) and the pattern are very familiar.

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The very same idea, but it will probably take most an instant longer to solve because the pattern is not as familiar.

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An even more unfamiliar pattern, which might even take people a second or two to solve.

<Thank you - such well put thoughts leave no stones unturned>

The last diagram is not a smothered mate. Its 1-mate by Nf7+. Or something is missing?

<BOSTER> <if you don't see tactics immediately, don't worry- you willn't see it at all>. <Soltis>

No desire merely to disagree with <Soltis> but from personal experience I have noticed if I give myself enough time(difficult to be precise about the quantum)I get many a tactical idea as late 'Eurekas'. It happens every day to me on the Tactics Computer (TC). I used to think gut moves were generally right. Not so on TC. (May be TC is programmed just to frustrate the 'gut feeling' moves; I get that impression clearly).

To be fair I have some friends who play good chess. They are quite emphatic and say the same thing as <Soltis>. "If I do not get it in 1 or 2 minutes I don't get it at all". And they are fast thinkers, I know.

17. Nxd5 exd5

(...Bxd5 Nd7! winning the exchange)

18. Nxc6 Qxc6
19. Rxe7

And white is a piece up.

Time to check

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Yes, very right