Cordingley puzzle 59

White to play and win

Solution

Another puzzle which stings me. Of course, I saw the winning move, 1 Ng6+, which was the first move I thought of, but I couldn't see how to follow it up.

I need my bumper book of excuses here, but the honest answer is, I totally messed up. Firstly, I didn't look hard enough at 1…hg: as will be seen in the solution below, there is a simpler version of the flashy line played, and the simpler version, starting with a check, is obvious enough. But more annoyingly, I didn't look properly at black's defence 1…Kg8, which I thought was his best line: I wasn't convinced after 2 Nf8 Qf8 3 Qe6 about if white had enough after gf, but I had already noted that the Bb6 was a LPDO.

Not being convinced by 1 Ng6+, I looked instead at 1 Ne6, and got distracted by nice lines. I thought that 1…gf 2 Rf6 was pretty close to winning, and 1…Ne6 2 Qe6 likewise, with h6! happening in some lines. Alas, 1 Ne6 is flawed, and had I noticed the flaw, I no doubt would have returned to 1 Ng6+, but I didn't.

I suspect my error was:

#8 seeing an illusory brilliancy, and not checking it.

I have though added a further one to my list of errors:

#9 awful calculation and mis assessment.

Posted with Blogsy