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White to Play

Pete Tamburro on

Published in Chess Puzzles

We’re going to have some fun with an exercise in logic. Those two words, fun and logic, don’t go together too often. We might even add educational. It’s White to play and mate in 16 moves. That might ordinarily scare you off, but it shouldn’t this time if you think logically. Give it a try. Ask yourself, what do you know, what will the final position be and what will be necessary one move before the mate? Enough logic hints, get going!


- Solution: Here’s the logical sequence of thought, which is great for students as well to develop their chess powers of disciplined thinking: 1.In order to control how everything unfolds, you have to see that the Black knight has to go first, else you have a wild mustang running all over the place. 2. Once that is done, you should realize that the only move Black has is to shuttle the queen back and forth until mate.3.At this point, you know that the pawn has to promote to something to deliver the mate. 4. If you look at Black’s position, you realize that, even if you parachute a queen into any square, it won’t be a mate. 5. The knight, then, has to come to mind. 6. What would be the “parachute square for the knight to check? 7. Once you look at all the checking squares, by process of elimination you should come up with b3, which could be mate IF the queen were on a1 when you were about to mate; thus, the knight has to take on b3 via a5 and the queen has to be on a2 just before you play Na5. You also have to eliminate at least one pawn.8. NOW, you have to count out the number of moves to get to a5 (via c4) and make sure the queen is where it’s supposed to be. 9.Like most people, you probably tried 2.h4 and found out that when you got over to the queenside the queen was uncooperative and you couldn’t lose a move with the knight as you can with other pieces (there are some K & P endings with a knight on this theme). 10.HOWEVER, you can lose a move with 2.h3! and then everything works!! All very logical. This would be fun to do with a chess class as a group and listen to their discussion. 1.Kxe1 Qa1 2.h3!! [2.h4 Qa2 3.h5 Qa1 4.h6 Qa2 5.h7 Qa1 6.h8N Qa2 7.Ng6 Qa1 8.Nf4 Qa2 9.Ne6 Qa1 10.Nxc5 Qa2 11.Ne4 Qa1 12.Nc5 Qa2]2...Qa2 3.h4 Qa1 4.h5 Qa2 5.h6 Qa1 6.h7 Qa2 7.h8N Qa1 8.Ng6 [ or 8.Nf7—there are several varying knight moves that do not change the solution]8...Qa2 9.Nf4 Qa1 10.Ne6 Qa2 11.Nxc5 Qa1 12.Ne4 Qa2 13.Nd6 Qa1 14.Nxc4 Qa2 15.Na5 Qa1 16.Nxb3#

 


Send questions and comments to PTamburro@aol.com.

 

 

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