Cordingley puzzle 54

White to play (and not win, as it turns out)

Solution

Oh dear. The game continuation is shown below, and whilst 1 hg would be the move I would play ( almost an only move), I think all modern black players would capture back: when it is equal, or more or less so.

Fortunately I didn't waste any time on this puzzle: intuitively 1..de was bad, with gh! being not too hard (and Qc3? failing to Nd4).

Duras was one of the top players of his time; I wonder whether at that time one was still obliged to accept sacrifices? Of course, there can be other reasons for playing poor moves.

Oddly, the game is not in Megabase. Cordingley tells us the previous two moves were Rge3 Kf8: I had a quick look, and the position before Rge3 is also level; and Qc5 would have been better than Kf8, with equality.

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