Puzzles, Positions, and...

[Sashie VII]

..anything you found useful, interesting or amusing to you or you think would be so to others. Chess improvement stuff is also welcome.

I'll start this with easy positions from my own game:


Puzzle 1: Find White's next move!

Spoiler :

Puzzle 2: Find the best move.

Spoiler :

A few moves later....

Answers: Do try them out first

Spoiler :

Position 1: The first inclination might be to take the rook with the knight, but White have better. Black's bishop is hanging.

1. RxB

Position 2:

1. Nxd5! exN
2. c7!

Black can't guard against the threat on the king's position and the pawn's march at the same time.


Original game is here.

 

[Narz]

Nice thread idea Sashie!

I was going to post these two games (blitz games I'm playing while procrastinating my correspondence ones ) in "Share Your Games" but neither of them are particularly great as full games however both have pretty decent intermediate level tactical puzzles within them.

Listed in chronological order (not necessarily in order of difficulty).

Black to move, what should he do?


White to move

Spoiler Try & solve first!! :

Puzzle #1 :

1. Re2+! Rd2
2. Rxd2 Bxd2
3. Rxd2 Kxd2
4. Nb3+ (wins the rook via a fork & black goes into the endgame with an extra piece)

Note : if white plays Kb1 instead of Rd2 black simply wins a rook & Kc1 (while seemingly safer than Kb1) is the worst move of all & leads to a forced mate - see if you can spot it!

Full Game #1

------------------------

Puzzle #2 :

1. Qh7+ Kf8
2. Qh8# (the black bishop cannot take because it is pinned)

Seems basic once you see it but these things can be hard to spot in the beginning

Full Game #2

 

[Sashie VII]

Glucksberg - Najdorf, Miguel (Warsaw, 1935), presented by Andreas




Black to move. Find Black's best continuation!


Answer:

Spoiler :

1... Ndxe5+ 2. fxe5 Nxe5+ 3. Kf4 Ng6+ 4. Kf3 f4 5. exf4 Bg4+ 6. Kxg4 Ne5+ 7.fxe5 h5#

You can get daily puzzles and problems here.

 

[Sashie VII]

Double post, see below.

 

[Narz]

Nice one. I was stumped & had to peek (I guess the knight sac but couldn't see it all the way thru).

 

[col]

I couldnt see it either - hard to visualise.

 

[Sashie VII]

Olafsson - Simagin (Moscow, 1959), presented by Andreas l Original Source l

Black to move, how should Black continue?




Answer:

Spoiler :

1. ... Nf2+

A1:
2. Kg2 Ng4+
3. Kh3 Rxh2+
4. KxN h5#

A2:
2. Kg2 Ng4+
3. Kh1 Rd1+
4. BxR QxB+
5. Kg2 Qe2+
6. Kg1 Qe3+
7. Kh1 Qf3+
8. Kg1 Qf2+
9. Kh1 Qxh2+


B1:
2. Kg1 Nh3+
3. Kf1 Qd3+ mate soon

B2:
2. Kg1 Nh3+
3. Kh1 Rd1+

B2 (a):
4. BxR QxB+
5. Kg2 Qg1+
6. KxN Qf1+
7. Kg4 h5+
8. Qxh5 Qe2+
9. Kh3 QxQ

B2 (b):
4. Kg2 Qe2+
5. KxN g4+
6. Bxg4 Qh6+
7. Kg2 Qxh2+
8. Kf1 Qf2#

This is my own answer, feel free to correct if there are mistakes. It took me quite some time just using a wordpad without a board, in the end I had to create the position with my chess set after all to solve B2 (a).

 

[Narz]

From a blitz game



What's white's best continuation?

Spoiler :

Nxd5!

from this game

if black doesn't take the knight he's still in trouble, try to discern how.

 

[Narz]

White is down two pawns but he can win black's queen. How?

Spoiler :

7. Rb1 Qa3
8. Nb5 Qxa2
9. Ra1 Qb2
10. Bc3 Qxa1
11. Qxa1

If 8. ... Qa6 (instead of Qxa2) then 9. Nc7+ royal fork!

From this game.

Moral : don't bring your queen out too early!

Spoiler :

Unless you're Sashie & you know exactly what you're doing

 

[Sashie VII]

Not even I know what I'm doing most of the time

 

[peter grimes]

A question about en passant:

I understand that en passant is possible if, on a pawn's initial move, it comes out 2 ranks and rests adjacent to an opponent's pawn. The opponent may then take the moved pawn, moving to its file. But can that also happen if the opponent's pawn is on the first rank in front of your pawns, rather than the second rank?

EDIT: nevermind - I realized after I posted this that I can use the analysis board to find out

 

[DaveShack]

The answer should be no, right?

 

[Panzar75]

Try thinking like this: "If the pawn had moved only one square instead of two, could my pawn have captured it?". If the answer is yes then you can capture en passant. If the answer is no, then you can not.

 

[civiijkw]

Originally pawns could only move one square on the first move. When the rules were changed to allow a pawn to move two squares the en passant rule was added so that people couldn't use the new move to run by guarding pawns. (i.e. black pawn on a4 and white pawns on a3 and b2, with pawns only able to move one square the white pawns are frozen if unsupported, and the new rule was acceptible only if it didn't remove that guarding option).

 

[peter grimes]

The answer should be no, right?

Correct. Too bad, since I would have gained my opponent's queen. Oh well!

 

[Panzar75]

I found an instructive position when browsing through one of Chamnix's games. (Yes, I do look at most of your team games.) LINK

After 59. hxg5, white played the automatic recapture. Was there anything better?

 

[Sashie VII]

I found an instructive position when browsing through one of Chamnix's games. (Yes, I do look at most of your team games.) LINK

After 59. hxg5, white played the automatic recapture. Was there anything better?

..h5 would be unstoppable, White already have one passer one the other side and the knight is out of position. Black king's overstretched!

 

[DaveShack]

White also had chances with 61. Be4 instead of c7. But 60. h5 was the bigger miss.

 

[Narz]

Some great puzzles here (the third one is tough).

 

[Narz]

What is black's best move?

Spoiler :

Qh6 not Bg4 winning the queen but losing the game after
Qh8+! KxQ
Ng6!+ Kg8
Rg8#

This position is from a game of mine & I was moments away from making the Bg5 move before I saw it. My opponent may or may not have seen the mate but it's never good policy to hope they miss something like this just because of their rating.

Full Game