Cordingley puzzle 24

April 24, 2013

White to play and win

Or, find the win in the game, but also find the hidden flaw

Solution

An interesting puzzle, both for the position itself, but also because of a story behind it.

I am doing my blogs on my iPad, using the Blogsy app (which I am very impressed with, and the developer support is personal, responsive and helpful). Once solved, if I want to analyse the game further, for instance to check variations or write up some lines, I look the game up on Megabase (I have the 2012 version). I am not a heavy user of Megabase, but had assumed that it would have a very comprehensive coverage of older games, especially of the games of top players or the games which get into puzzle compilations. I have been mildly surprised to see the number of gaps. Some may be because of alternative spellings of players' names, but some seem real: and this game, isn't in the database. For some reason I decided to google this particular game- I was hoping I think to have the whole game score as a pgn file- and, lo and behold!- the game is called The Brazilian Immortal. João Caldas Vianna, born in Rio in 1862, was, from googling, the strongest South American player of his era; the game, an Evans Gambit, was called immortal because of the final combination.

I solved it, but also found the 'cook' or flaw: and kept on trying to find an even better solution, but I think there is none. When I looked at Cordingley's solution he too knew of the flaw, though the website where I found the pgn file didn't know of it.

I think I intuitively 'headed towards' 1 Nd6. It is helped by noting such themes as the threat of a bank rank mate; of white square weakness, particularly on the b3-g8 diagonal; and noting Purdy's 'jump check' Qf7mate, do that the c7pawn is pinned, so the Nd6 can't be taken by the pawn; or by the Re8 which has his hands full protecting the back rank. So 1 Nd6 is the natural move to play.

Nevertheless, the solution is pretty: and I was pleased with myself I particular to be able to properly analyse how to overcome black's second best defence, 1…h6, which was played in the game: it took me a while to crack it, until I hit on the idea of a queen check on d5, and a further centralisation of the queen setting up a discovered check battery. Then, the final hard move to find is the lovely Rf6!!: other moves, lead to white's loss- he only just has enough attack to pull through.