Karjakin endgame puzzle

Try to solve this position first, before reading on.

This game was played in August 2008 in a blitz game Karjakin-Gelfand, Tal Memorial, Moscow. Later that year I was spectating at 50 Grandmasters battle for chess championship honour – Liverpool News – News – Liverpool Daily Post the EU individual championships. I showed this position to two friends: IM Jeff Horner, and GM Nigel Short.

Jeff solved it in around 30 seconds, with a twinkle in his eye- typical Jeff. Nigel studied it for over two minutes, and then gave up. When I showed Nigel the solution, we had a laugh together, about why Jeff could solve it, but Nigel couldn't. Jeff is an arch tactician, but Nigel knows far more about technique, and so missed 1 Qh5+ with the skewer e8(Q)+ to follow. Very pretty.

In the blitz game, Karjakin missed the winning move, and Gelfand drew.

(First seen in Chess Today 2858 http://www.chesstoday.net/)

Posted with Blogsy