Another astounding computer move

Two days ago, I blogged about the astonishment, bewilderment, thrill and awe of what chess engines can find nowadays.

As someone who has some chess strength (my lifetime #1 feeling of glow was last summer in Manchester, when Garry Kasparov introduced me to someone as 'a strong chess player; no, a very strong chess player' beating Mickey Adams' description of me in Turin in 2006 as someone who has 'some understanding of chess') and an even greater love for the game, I have for a long time now been startled by the moves engines show that I miss (and, in my defence, ones which the world's elite miss). Today, whilst looking through a blitz game which I had saved since aspects of it interested me, Houdini 3 revealed another startler.

(Ra8-a7, instead of my prosaic Nd3, which of course wins)

Once Houdini shows you the idea of diverting the Q from the h1-a8 diagonal, and particularly its control of e4, the idea is obvious. Whether I would have found it in a classical or Rapidplay game, I don't know, but in blitz, I didn't.

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