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White to Play

Pete Tamburro on

Published in Chess Puzzles

This is a real Friday challenge. White (in Ivkov-Ciric, 1963) initiated a decisive attack here. The challenge here is to see the follow up moves that are necessary to see “down the road.” There are a good many forced moves in a row, so when you get to, say, move 8 in your thinking, you had best see what the key move is in that position. This is one of those take out a set and make believe you’re at a tournament puzzles. Have fun!


Solution:

If you went with the direct looking 1.Qg6, it’s OK as it does win, but it takes a while. After 1.Qg6 Rf7 2.Qxh6 e5 3.Qg6 Nxc5 4.h6 Qf8, Black is fighting a losing battle, but the best solution is what is really the most forcing: 1.Rxg7+ Kxg7 2.Qg6+ Kh8 3.Qxh6+ Kg8 4.Qg6+ Kh8 5.h6 Rg8 6.Bxf6+ Nxf6 7.Qxf6+ Kh7 You may very well have gotten this far because the line is very straightforward and forcing; however, not everyone can calculate this far and when they get here see the backwards bishop move. The next aspect is that if you were thinking in a tournament the really top flight players would take into consideration the counterattack by Black. White would have to make sure he could avoid the checks, which he does. 8.Bf1 Ba6 [8...e5 9.Bh3 Bc8 10.d7 Bxd7 11.Bxd7] 9.Bxa6 Qxb3 10.d7 Rxg3+ 11.fxg3 Qxg3+ 12.Kf1 Qh3+ 13.Ke1 Qg3+ 14.Kd2 Qh2+ 15.Kc3 d4+ [15...Qg3+ 16.Bd3+] 16.Kb3 [16.Kb4 Qd2+ draws!] 16...Qg3+ 17.Ka4 and there are no more useful checks for Black. White will get his Qg7+ and after the queen exchange, the d7 pawn will queen. Now you have some idea of why tournament chess players need so much time to figure all this out!

 

Send questions and comments to PTamburro@aol.com.


 

 

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