7k/1p5p/7P/pq6/8/8/R5P1/4R2K w - - 0 1

Advanced Problem - White To Play (444)

What is White's most efficient route to victory?

8/r6p/PR2Pk2/8/8/1B1b4/8/6K1 w - - 0 1

Dress Pr0n For The 'Ettes:

Dress, Madeleine Vionnet, 1936 The Metropolitan Museum of Art pic.twitter.com/sXmRpofXcg

— History Lovers Club (@historylvrsclub) November 25, 2019

Greetings from Hungary
("You know I think you're a pathetic little worm, don't you?")

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Problem Solutions

Beginner Problem - White To Play

r6r/2p1R3/p4k1p/1p1b2p1/P1pP1qPP/B1P5/4QP2/R5K1 w - - 0 1

Mate in 3:

1.Qe5+ Qxe5

Or 1...Kg6 2.Qg7#

2.dxe5+ Kg6
3.h5#

Intermediate Problem - White To Play

7k/1p5p/7P/pq6/8/8/R5P1/4R2K w - - 0 1

1.Rxa5! Kg8

Not 1...Qb6? 2.Ra8+ Qd8 3.Rxd8# or 1...Qxa5?? 2.Re8#

2.Rxb5 Kf7

Black must give up his queen to avoid the immediate mate. White mops up with:

3.Rb6 Kg8
4.Rxb7 Kf8
5.Ra1 Kg8
6.Ra8#

Advanced Problem - White To Play

8/r6p/PR2Pk2/8/8/1B1b4/8/6K1 w - - 0 1

1.e7+ Kxe7
2.Rb7+ Kd6

If 2...Rxb7 then 3.axb7 and the pawn skates to the 8th rank. Black can make White work for the win by not retaking the rook, and by bringing his king into play.

3.Rxa7 Kc6
4.Ra8 Kb6
5.a7 Ba6

If Black tries to immediately force the rook away with 5...Be4, then White can force a decisive simplificaton with 6.Re8 Bb7 7.a8=Q Bxa8 8.Rxa8 winning.

6.Bd5 h5

Or 6...h6 7.Kg2 h5 8.Kg3 h4+ 9.Kxh4 Bd3 10.Kg5 Ba6 11.Kf4 Bf1 12.Ke3 Bb5 13.Rb8+ Kxa7 14.Rxb5 wins

7.Kg2 h4
8.Kh3 Be2
9.Kxh4 Ba6
10.Kg5 Bd3
11.Kf4 Ka6
12.Ke3 Bb1
13.Rc8 Kxa7
14.Ra8+ Kb6
15.Rb8+ and wins with the skewer.

The moral of this story is, don't give up too early. It's true that White had the win, but he had to work hard for it, and in the stress of a tournament situation, time pressure, etc., there's plenty of room for mistakes.

Hope to see you all next week!

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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. Or, Windows users can just "triple click" on it and the entire line will be highlighted so you can copy and paste it into your chess app.

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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 OregonMuse at 05:23 PM

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