ArcaMax

Today’s position is a toughie. In fact, it took grandmaster play over 70 years to come up with the right solution. It is White to play his 14th move. It’s a long attacking line, so you need a plan.

Today’s position is from my book, Openings for Amateurs-Next Steps. White is obviously winning, but what is the quickest way to mate Black?

In the old Chess Review magazine, I used to love the puzzles they always had in each issue. We’ll share some of those this week.

Last week we saw legendary GM Milan Vidmar at his best. Chess has its equalizing tendencies as he takes it on the chin in this game.

Black Resigned right after White played his first move in this position.

This is our third and final example of GM Milan Vidmar of yesteryear. He polishes off Teichmann at Carlsbad in 1907.

Here is our second Vidmar finish—a mate in six. When I first saw this position, it looked like a composed problem set up, but it happened in a real game: Vidmar-Tarrasch, Nuremberg, 1906.

Grandmaster Milan Vidmar, as White, found himself threatened with mate at h2 by a future world champion, Dr. Max Euwe, but he came up with a saving mating attack.

We’ve been talking about the wrong square color bishop allowing the weaker side to draw in rook pawn endings. This study by von Holzhausen, 1910, is a gem for teaching some of the intricacies because White can draw here or lose here, depending on how White plays it.

This is one of the most useful studies you can know. Everyone "knows" that a rook pawn that wants to queen needs a bishop of the color of the queening square, otherwise it's a draw because the king can sit on the queening square and not be forced away from, in this case, g7 and h8. A Troitsky study gives the example of when this is not true.

Instead of rook and pawn endings, we’ll do some elementary bishop and pawn endings this week and then go back to mating attacks. Both study themes win games, though, so chess players need to sharpen their skills at endgames as well.

Here’s our final rook and pawn ending for a while, and it’s a great one by Reti. What doesn’t work and why is as interesting as what does work and why! White to play and win.

Day Two of key rook and pawn endings. This one is by the great composer Grigoriev.

Rook and Pawn endings are, with King and Pawn endings, required study for every serious chess player. This week, we will look at three that will give you great lessons in what you can do with rooks. Today’s study is by Cheron from 1944.

The Russians had great respect for former US champ and Grandmaster Arthur Bisguier as they favorably mention him in their books. They liked his aggressive style and his endgame play. In this position, as Black, he knocks off Boris Spassky at the Interzonal in 1955.

This is definitely endgame time. Black’s pawn’s look imposing, but White can win.

This showed up on the internet the other day, so I thought I would share it. Black to play and win. A very important endgame lesson!

If you’ve been with me a while, you should get the first move right away, but can you work out all the details that lead to mate or winning black’s queen? You would have to do that in a tournament. Can you anticipate what Black might do to not cooperate?

This is yet another opening trap, but it has a long solution. Here’s the game up to the diagram: Imbaud-Strumilo, Correspondence, 1932: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d3 d5 5.exd5 Nxd5 6.Nc3 Nb6 7.Bb3 Bg4 8.h3 Bh5. You can’t take credit for solving it unless you find not only move 9, but move 12 as well. This correspondence player worked it ...

This is an opening trap in the Philidor Defense everyone should know. The game opens like this: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Be7 6.Bc4 0–0 7.0–0 Re8 8.Re1 Nfd7 Black's idea is to either play Bf6 to counter along the diagonal or play Ne5 to chase the white bishop. Unfortunately, there's a problem with the idea. [See Diagram]