Coringley puzzle 82

White to play and win

Solution

I enjoyed solving this one. In bullet, blitz and probably classical, I would play 1 Re1+, and hope to make some use of the pin, but knowing full well that if black survives, develops, and advances his d pawn, it is anyone's game.

So, time is of the essence, so I soon saw 2 Ng6. Alas, I couldn't get it to work: I found ways to sacrifice too much to get the black queen, but the end result was 0-1, so I kept looking, until I thought of the maxim 'reverse the order' after which 1 Ng6! brought a smile to my face. It was easy to see the game continuation line, even visualising that after 4 Qh5 white's threats include 5 Bg5+, 5 Qf5 mate, and 5 h4!

A really nice puzzle.

Houdini tells me that whilst 1 Ng6!! is clearly best, both 1 Re1+ (followed by Qg4) and 1 Nh5 are over +2: in both cases, hitting g7.

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