Cordingley puzzle 115 #chess

White to play and win

Solution

I enjoyed this one. In my initial appraisal, I saw no LPDOs; and also saw that black is far from threatening white, with, for instance, 1…Be3 2…Bd2+ 3…Qf2+ never a threat because of 4 Nge2, when the king is quite cozily protected by his knights and pawns. So clearly the motif is based on promoting the h pawn, and equally clearly, it is likely to be good enough to exchange the Queen, even for just R and N. So 1 Qg7 with the idea of 2 Rf7, or, and this is the solution, 1 Qg6, with the cute point that 1..Rdg8 is met by 2 Qg7!, and if the queen is taken, white gets R+N and a pawn on the seventh for it, and it doesn't take much to see that the pawn will queen, or else black will face ruin less loss.

I felt more or less confident about 1 Qg6 but know that in practice I might chicken out and play 1 Nce2, protecting the Ng3, preserving the threats, and if 1…Rdg8 then 2 b4 embarrasses the B, forcing (more or less) 2…Be3, when 3 Qe7 either wins the d6 pawn or gets a R to the seventh. This more boring, less tactical style is more mine, but I would also like the demoralising effect (on black) of 2 Qg7 after 1 Qg6 Rdg8.

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