White to Play and Mate

Pete Tamburro on Sep 22, 2009

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This position is a real major league test of your chess skills. There's a mating attack here. Interestingly enough, it's from a grandmaster game between Beliavsky and Gelfand at Linares, 1992, and when White played his move here, Black resigned! One world class grandmaster telling the other, "You beat me, but I see the mate, too." Your challenge is to see what they saw. White has all his pieces pointing in the direction of the Black castled position. The position is pregnant with possibilities. We hope it gives birth to a mating idea in your mind. There are several paths here. Find the best one!

Solution:

Even though the following mating attack was never played, this game has more different mating variations than any end of game I've ever seen. If you want a real chess lesson on what amazing things chess pieces can do, play through every variation below (and that's not even all of them!). Here's the whole game up to the diagram: Beliavsky,Alexander G (2620) - Gelfand,Boris (2665) [D10]

Linares 10th Linares (7), 1992

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 e5 4.dxe5 d4 5.Ne4 Qa5+ 6.Nd2 Nh6 7.Ngf3 Nf5 8.g3 Ne3 9.fxe3 dxe3 10.a3 Bf5 11.Bg2 Bc5 12.b4 Bxb4 13.axb4 Qxa1 14.0–0 exd2 15.Qxd2 0–0 16.Bb2 Qa6 17.Ng5 Bg6 18.e6 f6 19.e7 Re8 20.Bh3 Qb6+ 21.c5 Qc7 22.Be6+ Kh8 23.Rxf6 Nd7 and now the diagrammed position arises. Black resigned after 24.Rxg6

24.Rxg6 Rxe7 [24...Ne5 25.Nf7+ Nxf7 26.Qh6 Rg8 27.Bxg7+ Rxg7 28.Qxg7#; 24...hxg6 25.Qd4 Nf6 26.Qxf6 Rxe7 (26...gxf6 27.Bxf6#) 27.Qxg6 Qxg3+ 28.hxg3 Rxe6 29.Qh7#] 25.Rxg7 Rxg7 26.Nf7+ Kg8 27.Nd6+ Kf8 28.Bxg7+ Kxg7 [28...Ke7 29.Qg5+ Kxe6 30.Qf5+ Ke7 31.Qf7+ Kd8 32.Qe8#] 29.Qg5+ Kf8 30.Qg8+ Ke7 31.Qf7+ Kd8 32.Qe8#

Full credit if you found the longer attack, which is just as imaginative: 24.Nf7+ Bxf7 [24...Kg8 25.Ne5+ Bf7 (25...Kh8 26.Nxg6+ hxg6 27.Qh6+ gxh6 28.Rf8+ Kh7 29.Bg8#) 26.Rxf7 Rxe7 27.Rxg7+ Kxg7 28.Qg5+ Kf8 29.Qg8#] 25.Rxf7 Qe5 26.Qxd7 Qe3+ 27.Kf1 h5 28.Rxg7 Qc1+ 29.Bxc1 Kxg7 30.Bf5 h4 31.Bb2+ Kh6 32.Qd6+ Kh5 33.Qg6#

Send questions and comments to PTamburro@aol.com.