Stick with it please. The road may look empty at the moment, but there'll be some chess along in a wee while. Promise.

It's like this. My son, aka the best boy in the world, is now 12 going on 18. All sorts of strange changes are happening to him, some of which we don't really want to think about.

The one I want to talk about is his appetite. You see, like a magic trick or a Hollywood special effect, he is morphing from the fussiest eater in the world to a typical teen monster that could eat the world.

But there are still some foods that are taboo for him. Unfortunately, they are mostly the ones labelled as "healthy", such as many vegetables and nearly all fruit. Nigh on thirteen years of bribery, negotiation and coercion have got us to a repertoire of peas (petit pois not chip shop mushy -he is from Surrey), baked beans, sweetcorn and bananas. And I think the bananas are only there for comic effect.

No matter what we try, we cannot get him to try anything else. He has no problem trying new tastes as long as they are curries, the flesh of dead animals or some farinaceous matter smothered with copious amounts of chocolate.

But present him with an orange, a pineapple or a grapefruit and his instant reaction is "nah, I wouldn't like that."

Actually, I'm with him on the grapefruit thing. They have always struck me as oranges which have failed the sweetness audition and we only keep them around out of sympathy.

When he says "nah", he doesn't quite mean "no". He might try them one day, if they are smothered in a spicy sauce and his friends and/or a girl are present.

And that's the thing. A "nah" is nearly but not quite a "no". It's reserved for something so unlikely but not absolutely impossible.

Take today's POTD for example(see, I told you there would be some chess eventually). When I looked at the position I mentally classified several of the pieces as immobile. The Rf7 is in an absolute pin. The Bf6 is sort of pinned against the threat of Qxf7+. And the Bd7 is sort of pinned in place because we really don't want to allow white to join up his rooks on the seventh.

What I was really thinking was that moving the rook was a "no", and moving the bishops was a pair of "nahs".

And so I tricked myself into thinking that the only piece that I could move was the black queen. And that led me to this pile of pavement pizza: 22... Qa1+ 23. Kh2 Be5+? (Bc6 was still playable here) 24. g3 Be6

Which is frankly awful. Nearly as bad as some of the yoofchoob videos that the BBITW insists on watching.

The problem, I think, was that I thought the bishops were sort of pinned against nasty threats by white. So I only wanted to move them if they were making some form of counter threat or check. I didn't even look at 22...Bc6.

I really only have a couple of candidates, but luckily most of them can be ruled out quite quickly.

Bxe7, Be5, Be8, Be6 and Kh8.

22 ... Bxe7
23 Qxf7+ Kh8
24 Qxe7

22 ... Be5
23 Qxf7+ Kh8
24 Rxe5

22 ... Be8
23 Rxe8+ Rxe8
24 Bxf7+ Kf8 ( Kh8 25 Bxe8 Qxe8 26 Qe4 )
25 Qa3+ Be7
26 Qb3

22 ... Be6
23 Bxe6 (it seems in most variations I can fathom)

So that just leaves...

22 ... Kh8
23 Rxf7

Hmmm, okay so I am no further forward...

~~~

(1) 22...Bc6 23.Bxc6 Qa1+ 24.Kh2 Be5+ 25.g3 Rxf3

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(1a) or 22...Bc6 23.Bxc6 Qa1+ 24.Kh2 Be5+ 25.Rxe5 Rxf3 26.Bxf3 Qxe5+

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(1b) 22....Bc6 23.Bxf7+ Kh8 24.Qxc6 Rd1+ 25.Kh2 Qf4+

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*****
PM: 22...Be6 never crossed my mind. It seemed better to pin White's WSB with 22...Bc6. In any case, I was able to eliminate 22...Be5 due to 23.Qxf7+ Kh8 24.Rb1 Qc2 25.Re1 Bd4 26.R1e2

*****
PPM: Having read the posts, it looks like 22...Bc6 was better

wow!! As easy as yesterday's puzzle. The move >>> 22. ...Bc6 is crushing!!! :D

It's a tricky calculation, but I picked c6 over e6, simply because I didn't see any dangerous checks by white. I saw a nice pin, back rank problems for white, and best of all, g7 was well protected, so the two rooks only LOOKED dangerous, but actually were not.

The only danger was the white queen, who was neutralized by Black's bishop. So, that bishop on f6 is doing tremendous defensive work for black, allowing him to ignore White's pseudo-threats and simply go for White's king.

The fact that black is already up a bishop makes the calculation a bit simpler; also, because black doesn't have to try to regain any material -- and even if he loses a rook, there are still attacking options available with the lovely bishop on c6 and the back rank.

In a way, that is the idea but only after <22...Bc6 23.Bxc6...>.

I looked at 23 Bxf7+ Kf8 24 Bb3?!

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The idea is to get black to play 24...Bxf3??, which sets up a forced mate beginning with 25 Rf7+.

White threatens 23.B(R)xf7.

Since the white bishop pins the rook on f7, any threat against the white queen is not real, for example, 22... Qa1+ 23.Kh2 Qe5+ 24.Rxe5 Bxe5+ and 25... Rxf3 is impossible.

The idea of diverting the white bishop with 22... Be6 fails to 23.Bxe6 Rd1+ 24.Kh2 Be5+ 25.g3.

The only move seems to be 22... Bc6:

A) 23.Bxf7+ Kf8

A.1) 24.Qh5 Rd1+ 25.Qxd1 (25.Kh2 Qf4+ 26.g3 Rh1#) 25... Qxd1+ 26.Kh2 Bxb7, etc.

A.2) 24.Qb3 Qxb3 25.Bxb3 (25.Rxb3 Bxd5) 25... Bxe7 26.Rxe7 Rdf8 and Black will end up a piece ahead.

B) 23.Bxc6 Qa1+ 24.Kh2 Be5+ 25.Rxe5 Rxf3 wins.

I've been going over it with the computer for two days now, and still don't feel I have more than a superficial understanding of the complexities of 22...Bc6!! and its difficult follow-up.

The best-play line is apparently 22... Bc6!! 23. Bxf7+! Kf8 24. Qf5! (position below)

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What makes it so difficult is not only finding a strong continuation from this position, but also in uncovering the difficult forcing moves leading up to it.