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White to Play

Pete Tamburro on

Published in Chess Puzzles

The solution to this problem is so outrageous that you should just go right to the solution and play it out and appreciate the genius of the creation. The late GM Eduard Gufeld humorously claimed the unknown composer was from outer space!


You will go crazy with the subvariations, so just play through the main line. With Black being forced to promote to knights and ending up with four of them makes me wonder how a human brain is composed to come up with such an idea. The lone white bishop just drives Black crazy. 1.Nf6+ Kg7 1...Kg6 2.Bh5+ Kf5 3.d8Q Ne4+ 4.Nxe4 Kxe4 5.Kc6 Nb8+ 6.Qxb8 Kd3 7.Qd6+ Kc2 8.Qd1+ 2.Nh5+ Kg6 2...Kh7 3.Bc2+ 3.Bc2+ Kxh5 3...Ne4+ 4.Bxe4+ Kg5 5.d8Q+ 4.d8Q Nf7+ 4...Kg4 5.Qf6 Kxg3 6.Qe5+ Kf3 7.Bd1+ Kg2 8.Qxe3 c4+ 9.Kc6 Bc5 10.Qxc3 Bf2 11.Qxc4 Nc5 12.Qg4+ Kh2 13.Qf5 Kg1 14.Qg4+ Kh2 15.Be2 Bg3 16.Kxc5 5.Ke6 Nxd8+ 6.Kf5 e2 7.Be4 e1N 8.Bd5 c2 9.Bc4 c1N 10.Bb5 Nc7 11.Ba4 and mate can’t be stopped. Wow! Speaking of wild problems, here is the answer to the last one, Nabokov’s problem. The solution is White takes back his last move, his pawn on d7 having captured black’s knight on c8 and promoted to a rook. His new first move is this pawn on d7 taking black’s rook on e8 and promoting to a knight, giving mate.

 


Send questions and comments to PTamburro@aol.com.

 

 

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