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White to Play

Pete Tamburro on

Published in Chess Puzzles

ArcaMax Editor's Note: Today's chess puzzle is a correction from yesterday's puzzle, which included the wrong solution. Years ago, V.Vukovic wrote a classic called “The Art of Attack in Chess.” He addressed the main themes of how to mate a king. He organized it well. Several of his lessons involved “focal points.” This week we are going to look at how he presented attacking a focal point. Our focal point for the week will be the square directly in front of the kingside castled king: either g2 or g7, depending on who is attacking whom. Here’s our first example.


Solution:

There were several ways to go in this position. Vukovic chooses a forcing variation because it concentrates on g7. He points out that 1.Qg3 g6 2.Bg5 Qc5 3.Nf6+ Bxf6 4.Bxf6 h6 followed by 5…Kh7 would make it harder for White, though he would have the advantage. He suggested this: 1.Bh6 g6 [1...Bf8 2.Qg3 (He suggested 2.Bxg7 but missed 2…Qc5—nobody’s perfect!) 2...f6 3.Bxg7 Kf7 4.Bxf8 Rxf8 5.Qg7+ Ke8 6.Nf4 d5 7.exd5 Bf7 8.Re1+ Kd7 9.Qg4+ Kd8 10.Ne6+ Bxe6 11.dxe6 Kc8 12.e7+ Kb7 13.exf8Q; 1...gxh6 2.Qc3 (2.Qg3+ Bg5) 2...f6 3.Qg3+] 2.Qc3 f6 3.Nxf6+ Bxf6 [heavy material loss follows 3...Kf7 4.Nxe8 Kxe8 5.Qh8+ Kd7 6.Qxa8] 4.Qxf6 and mate can’t be prevented.

What was great about this example is that it showed various ways of attacking g7—with the knight, the bishop and two different way with the queen. Picking the right sequence is then your next challenge as you can see from the notes. BTW, if you chose 1.Be3 followed by 2.Bd4, that, too, was another road to take, but all roads lead to g7!

 

Send questions and comments to PTamburro@aol.com.


 

 

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