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| Jul-21-09 | | Babar47: and i was so pround of my self with the Nxc6 line! oh yeah... :( |
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| Jul-21-09 | | Once: An unusual combination. 17. Rd8+ lures the king onto a square where 18. Nxc6+ is a removal of the guard with check. This means that black does not have time to extricate his queen. This may be one of the occasions when a puzzle becomes more difficult rather than easier when you have some experience. And more difficult still when you factor in the artificiality of the day of the week. A rank novice would never consider 17. Nxc6, for the simple reason that it "drops" the Queen on a4. A better player would look at 17. Nxc6 because he spots 17...Qxa4 18. Rd8#. A CG regular would say "hey, it's a Tuesday. That means a simple two move combination. 17. Nxc6 is a simple two move combination, so it must be the answer." Me? Rusty after a fortnight's chess-free holiday, so I didn't fancy calculating the follow-up to the non-forcing 17. Nxc6. Instead, I looked around for a more forcing continuation that didn't need so more intellectual effort. And in my laziness quickly found 17. Rd8+. Odd that sloppy thinking can sometimes find the right move more easily than more structured thought. |
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| Jul-21-09 | | newzild: Took me 55 seconds today (I'm timing myself this week). Like dzechiel, I spent about half my time looking at Bxc4-f7, which doesn't work. Then I noticed 17.Nxc6, thinking that 17...Qb6 was forced, but noticed while double-checking that black can play 17...Ba6! Many recent puzzles have demonstrated the importance of move order, and this allowed me to find 17.Rd8+! |
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Jul-21-09
 | | LIFE Master AJ: Wow, what a game!
At first, I thought the solution was 17.NxP/c6, QxQ/a4; 18.Rd8 mate. Then I saw 17...Ba6; and everything was not so clear. Then I remembered Alburt's advice ... most of the time, I have good ideas, just play with the move order. Then 17.Rd8+! (right away) and White wins without too much trouble. BTW, I spent over five minutes kicking around a few ideas here ... I was also having trouble believing that the board position could actually occur in a real game. |
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| Jul-21-09 | | SamAtoms1980: Plucky, this one here. I would eventually decide on 17 Nxc6, seeing 17 ... Ba6 but intending to follow up with 18 Bb8! Rxb8 19 Qxb5 Bxb5 20 Nxb8 with an unclear position where White appears to be better. Then I went to look it up, revealing 17 Rd8+ and Black is over. |
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| Jul-21-09 | | openningspecialist: i am yet another one of the fools who spent a minute or less and decided that Nxc6 was good. |
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| Jul-21-09 | | zb2cr: well, it's one consolation to me (for missing a Tuesday puzzle) to see that I'm in good company. I saw 17. Nxc6 and I didn't see Black's defense 17. ... Ba6. |
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| Jul-21-09 | | johnlspouge: Tuesday (Easy):
Beliavsky vs Bacrot, 1999 (17.?) White to play and win.
Material: Down 2P, although the 2P are in a tripled P. The Black Ke8 has 1 legal move, e7. The White Qa4 x-rays Ke8 through the Black Qb5 and Pc6. The Black Pc7 supports Qb5, and the White Ne5 can remove it, simultaneously creating a mate threat Rd1-d8 on the open d-file. The White Ke1 is secured from check. Candidates (17.): Nxc6, Rd8+
[17.Nxc6 Ba6 holds]
17.Rd8+ Kxd8 [Ke7 Nxc6+ wins Qb5]
18.Nxc6+ Qxc6 [K moves 19.Qxb5 drops Qb5 for only a R] 19.Qxc6 (threatening 20.Qxa8)
Counter-attack with 19…c2 20.O-O peters out, and Ra8 has no flight square because of Bg3. Presently therefore, White has Q for R+N+P with more material to come. The open Kd8 renders the Black position hopeless after O-O. |
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| Jul-21-09 | | banjo: WOW
the first tuesday puzzle
i couldn't solve .
Nc6 doublethreat looks so strong !
but it looses ! ;-)
i can't believe it .
but i hope i learned something .
MOVEORDER ! ! ! |
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| Jul-21-09 | | BlackWaive: Ah, so 17...Ba6 defends both the Queen and the back rank - an easily overlooked defensive maneuver! |
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| Jul-21-09 | | eblunt: Very smug with my Nxc6 answer, until I look on here and find Ba6!. My only solace is that <dzechiel> fell for it as well. Nc6 looks such a lovely move - leave the Queen en prise, and create 2 threats at the same time. Remember the old maxim "If you see a good move, actually check it is a good move after all .... " :) |
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| Jul-21-09 | | levelzx: This puzzle was neither fun, nor challenge thanks to Chessmaster 9000, which provided me the game above years ago, with memorable conclusion. |
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| Jul-21-09 | | Wolfgang01: @dzechiel: That's why many of us will never become a GM. Your solutions are great and in most cases correct. Never be ashamed! |
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| Jul-21-09 | | johnlspouge: < <al wazir> wrote: <dzechiel: . . . I am so ashamed.> Don't be. By regularly posting a record of your thoughts, right or wrong, you have set an example for a whole school of solvers. > As part of that "school", I would like to add that it takes real courage to post ex tempore analysis, when the only benefit to the author is to immortalize his own fallibility. It is, however, a necessary step in learning from each other's thought processes. Compare puzzle posts from two years ago, to see how little benefit puzzle-solving confers in the absence of precise analyses. Bottom line: thanks, <dzechiel>. |
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| Jul-21-09 | | CHESSTTCAMPS: Black is up two meaningless pawns, but white has all pieces actively developed except the Rh1, whereas black has 4 pieces on their original squares. Unlike Monday's puzzle (where the most interesting problem was to find black's best defense in the game continuation), this is an obvious "White to play and win" problem. Both d8 and f7 squares are protected only once, but d8 is the critical weakness: 17.Nxc6! Qb6
The only plausible continuation, in view of the dual threats of 18.Rd8# and 18.Qxb5. From here, either 18.Ne5+ or 18.Nb8+ win, but the simplest finish is 18.Rd8+ Qxd8 19.Nxd8+ Kxd8 20.Qxc6 Nd7 (Ke7 21.Bd6+ Kd8 22.Bc7+ Ke7 23.Qd6+ Ke8 24.Qd8#) 21.Qxa8. |
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| Jul-21-09 | | CHESSTTCAMPS: Ouch - I guess I'll join the <Dzechiel> club. An instructive Tuesday miss! |
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| Jul-21-09 | | David2009: David2009: Tuesday's puzzzle Beliavsky vs Bacrot, 1999 A surplus of plausible tries. 17 Bxc4?? loses to 17...QxQ; 17 Nxc6 loses momentum to 17 ...Ba6. Let's keep it simple with 17 Rd8+ KxR 18 QxQ winning Q for R with more to
follow.
===========
Spot on. |
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| Jul-21-09 | | Once: Today's puzzle is a rare example of a double-defensive move. Normally, we see moves that double-attack - a fork, a skewer, a pin. Indeed, the tempting 17. Nxc6 is itself a double attack - it threatens both 18. Rd8# and 18. Qxb5. What most of us missed is that black has a double move of his own which both defends d8 and the Qb5. 17...Ba6 simultaneously uncovers the Ra8's defence of d8 and protects the Qb5. As far as I am aware, the double defensive move does not have a proper name and is quite a rare beast. Which may explain why it was so hard to spot. The other point of note is that the position after 17. Nxc6 is one of those scary positions (well to me anyway) where black's reply is not forced. White has multiple threats so we might assume that black cannot defend against them all. But because black is not in check we cannot be sure that he doesn't have a clever saving resource - as he does here. I have learnt from bitter experience that positions like the one after 17. Nxc6 need very careful checking. I have thrown away far too many promising positions by thinking "surely he cannot defend against all of these threats"... |
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| Jul-21-09 | | RonB52734: I avoided jumping to Nxc6 by thinking that it looked complicated enough that I wanted to push it farther down my mental list. I started asking "what could that Knight fork, if given half a chance?" That led me to consider Rd8+, at first because if Black takes Kxd8, then Nxf7+ seems like it recovers the Rook plus a pawn (but hangs that blasted Queen). That's when I saw the bigger fish of Nxc6+. |
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| Jul-21-09 | | Patriot: Initial candidates: Rd8+,Nxc6
A) 17.Rd8+ Kxd8 18.Nxc6+ and 19.Qxb5  is a removal of the guard tactic. B) 17.Nxc6 (looks very strong but not as forcing, threatening both 18.Rd8# and 18.Qxb5) 17...Qb6 and 18.Rd8+ Qxd8 19.Nxd8+ Kxd8 or possibly 18.Nb8+ or 18.Nd5+. I didn't trust variation B, and rightfully so as I missed the 17...Ba6 defense. So I went with variation A because it is more forcing and undoubtedly winning. |
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| Jul-21-09 | | TheaN: Tuesday 21 July
<21.?>
Target: 1:25;000
Taken: 0:38;103
Par
Material: -2♙
Candidates: <[Rd8†]> -ML-
Actually only one puzzle move in this position, and it's all pretty forced. <21.Rd8†!> is a nice sacrifice. <21....Kxd8> obviously, Ke7 leads to the same Nxc6†. <22.Nxc6 Qxc6> White takes away the Queen's defender with the Knight check, any King move loses Queen for Rook. Now, Black snatches a Rook, Knight and pawn for the Queen. <23.Qxc6 > White should nonetheless be able to win this easily. Time to check. |
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| Jul-21-09 | | TheaN: 2/2
Black cannot even safe his Rook outright, aside the fact that the Knight on f6 is also in. So this is actually easier for White than I thought. And, I didn't even consider Nxc6... weird. |
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| Jul-21-09 | | jsheedy: 19. Nxc6 pretty much does it. It threatens 20. Rd8#. Black has no checks to delay it and must play 19...Qxc6, 20. Qxc6+ with mate to follow. |
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| Jul-21-09 | | jsheedy: Got my move numbers mixed up -- 19 should be 17 -- and I also overlooked 17...Bd7, which stops the mate threatened by 17. Nxc6. The rook sac is better, of course, but 17. Nxc6 wins eventually. |
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| Jul-21-09 | | JG27Pyth: Nxc6 -- I wouldn't feel so bad if I hadn't been so dang convinced of being very very clever when I found it. :( |
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Kibitzing
sac: 17.Rd8+