White to Play
Published in Chess Puzzles
This is a great position to learn from! White uses several themes to decisively attack Black. This is from a game, Whitehead-Garcia, New York,1988.
Solution:
One of the first things you need to notice is the queen-bishop battery attacking h6. In order to attack a castled position it is often necessary to sacrifice a piece to get rid of the protective pawn cover and expose the king. White does exactly that. However, you also need to see the follow-up move ideas. Once the g- and h-pawns aren’t there, you need more than the queen to finish the mating attack. Thus, White had to have seen the “rook lift” to d3, so it could slide over to g3. It was precisely that maneuver which introduced another theme: forcing Black to capture on g3 so White could activate the dormant rook on h1. Lots of good ideas here!
1.Bxh6 gxh6 2.Qxh6 Ne4 [Equally depressing was 2...Bxe5 3.dxe5 Ng4 4.Qh5 Qe7 5.Qxg4+ Kh8 6.Rd3 f5 7.Rh3+ Qh7 8.Qg6 Qxh3 (8...Rf7 9.Qxf7) 9.gxh3 Rf7 (9...Rg8 10.Qh6#) 10.Rg1 c5 11.Qh6+ Rh7 12.Qf6+ Rg7 13.Qxg7#; more stubborn was 2...Nh7 3.Bd3 f5 4.Qxe6+ Kh8 5.Ng6+ Kg7 6.Nxf8 Qxf8 7.Qd7+ Qe7+ 8.Qxe7+ Bxe7 9.Bxf5 Re8 10.0–0, but White has a rook and four pawns vs. two minor pieces advantage with a fairly easy win.] 3.Rd3 Re8 4.Rg3+ Black Resigned because of 4…Nxg3 5.hxg3 Bxe5 6.dxe5 f5 7.Qh8+ Kf7 8.Rh7+ Kg6 9.Qg7#
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