Cordingley puzzle 52

White to play and win

Solution

For a while, this puzzled me. I tried complex moves, like 1 Rb6+, thinking control over d7 would be useful; until I decided to go through a process, and first look at checks…and saw that 1 Bb5+ was murderous.

If black interposes a piece, white exchanges, and takes on b7: game over. So 1….c6, and 2 Ne4, with threats of Nd6+- Nf5+-Ng7: and white gets a strong, winning advantage. This turned out to be Houdini's preference; it is winning, but not a clean cut win. Cordingley's solution is 2 Nc4, which is good but weaker; the game continuation relied on black then playing a losing move, Bd7?? which changes the evaluation to -29.

Not a great puzzle. It was clear that black's king was stuck in the centre; there was a discovered check hitting the Qg7; and the Rb1 hits b7.

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