Cordingley puzzle 43
White to play and win
Solution
By contrast to the previous two puzzles, which I found straightforward, no 43 was an unmitigated disaster.
I failed to even see the move played in the game; and mis-calculated the slightly better one (in Houdini's eyes); and chose a move which I thought led to a winning ending, but, alas, leads to a level ending. In my slight defence, the winning line is quite hard to see, but I saw the geometry of the queens on the same rank, and that the black queen was LPDO; but didn't see 1 Be4; and I also looked at 1 Bf5, but didn't evaluate the position a few moves later properly.
Worse, I looked at this puzzle three years or so ago, and made a note to check my solution….the same insufficent solution as I came up with now. I don't know whether three years ago I looked at Cordingley's answer, but clearly I haven't learned a thing.
Better luck, I hope, with future ones. Below is the end position from the line I chose, where black has just enough activity to draw; and a PDF with my analysis, including the far stronger first moves.
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allanbeardsworth 