Black to Play
Published in Chess Puzzles
Solution:
The game went like this: 1.Nf3 f5 2.d4 Nf6 3.Bf4 e6 4.e3 d6 5.Nc3 Be7 6.Bd3 0–0 7.0–0 Nc6 8.a3 Bd7 9.Qd2 Qe8 10.e4 fxe4 11.Nxe4 Qh5 12.Ng3 Qf7 13.c4 Nh5 14.Nxh5 Qxh5 15.Bg3 and now we arrive at the diagram. I can play several moves here, but the one that hit me right off the bat was: 15… Rxf3 Why is that? A key idea in kingside attack is to break up a castled position’s pawn structure. The exchange sacrifice of rook for knight is common; however, what did I see to follow up with? I considered several “candidates.” One was playing e5 so I could use the bishop to attack the weak light squares in White’s position. One was improving my bishop placement with Bf6 and another was simply to bring the Rf8. I decided on the bishop move because it coordinated well with the knight attack on d4. My opponent didn’t quite get how important a N on d4 would be: 16.gxf3 Bf6 17.d5 exd5 18.cxd5 Nd4 19.Be4 Re8 20.Rac1 Rxe4 21.fxe4 Nf3+ 22.Kg2 Nxd2 23.Rfe1 Bh3+ and White finally resigned. So, this was pattern recognition (exchange sac), breaking up a castled position (exchange sac) and piece placement (coordinating occupation of d4). There were other possibilities, but for a teaching moment I hope this accomplishes the point I made in the original letter to the reader.
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