FEN: [5N2/p4n1P/k4p2/P3p3/1K4p1/8/8/8 w - - 0 1]

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Solutions Update:

Problem 1 - White To Play

20.Nxe6! sets up a knight fork on Black's queen and rook. But that's not all it does. I hope you all saw that, in addition to that, it also sets up the mating threat 21.Qxg7#. Knight forks are always fun, but this one has the added value of the mating threat. Black is now in a resignable position. In fact, he did resign.

Problem 2 - White To Play

This is the final few moves of the famous game Anderssen-Kieseritsky, London, 1851, which has been dubbed the "Immortal" game. You can play through at the entire game here. Anderssen could play like a crazy man. He reminds me of one of those nutty used car dealers, MY COMBINATIONS ARE INSANE!!! In order to get this position, Anderssen had sacrified both his rooks. And he wasn't through, yet.

1.Nxg7+ Kd8
2.Qf6+ Nxf6

Nothing like sac'ing your queen!

3.Be7#

Or 2...Ne7 3.Qxe7# works, too.

Here's a possible alternate path to checkmate, but it's longer, and I don't think it's forced:

1.Nf6+ Nxf6
2.Qxa8 Kd8
3.Be7+ Kc7
4.Qxa7+ Bb7
5.Bd6+ Kc6
6.Ne7#

Damiano Problem

1.Qxa7+ Kxa7
2.Ra2+ Qa4
3.Rxa4#

Problem 3 - White To Play

White thinks: "You know, if those queens were off the board, I'd have a won game. There's no way Black will be able to stop my b-pawn." So, is there any way White can force a trade of queens?

Yes:

1.Qb1+ Kf2
2.Qc2+ Kg3
3.Qxh2+ Kxh2
4.b4 and wins

Black won't have time to remove the obstructing g-pawn and advance his h-pawn.

Of course, you've got to be careful how you do this. I've thought I had won games so I forced the simplification and it turned out that I had overlooked something and so my "won" game wasn't so won after all. Oops.

Endgame of the Week

The first thing to notice about this position is that Black has three connected, unopposed pawns and there's no way White can catch any of them in time. But White is not lost: Black's king is not in a really good position, i.e. there's only one square it can move to (b7) if it gets attacked. So White should immediately start looking for ways to bring his knight over. Also, White has an advanced pawn of his own and in order to prevent it from queening, Black's knight is required to stay put exactly where it is on f7, and not move.

There are two possibilities for a White knight move, to e6 or d7. If 1.Nd7, then Black moves 1...Kb7 and White can pretty much hang it up. The other option, 1.Ne6, is better, because if Black tries to break containment with 1...Kb7, then 2.Nd8+! and here is something you don't see every day, a knight fork on a king and other knight. And Black cannot capture the knight, as that will allow White to queen his h-pawn.

So with 1.Ne6! there are two threads to this problem:

Thread A:

1.Ne6 g3 (or 1...f5 or 1...e4)
2.Nc5#

Thread B:

1...Kb7
2.Nd8+ Kc8
3.Nxf7 Kd7
4.h8=Q and wins

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Note: that cryptic line of letters and numbers you see underneath each board diagram is a representation of the position in what is known as "Forsyth-Edwards Notation", or F.E.N. It's actually readable by humans. Most computer applications nowadays can read FEN, so those of you who may want to study the position, you can copy the line of FEN and paste into your chess app and it should automatically recreate the position on its display board.

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So that about wraps it up for this week. Chess thread tips, suggestions, bribes, rumors, threats, and insults may be sent to my yahoo address: OregonMuse little-a-in-a-circle yahoo dott com.

posted by Open Blogger at 04:53 PM

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