Cordingley puzzle 119 #chess

White to play and win

Solution

Oh dear, here I committed two faults:

#10 rushing: not treating the puzzle with the attention it deserves

#11 spotting a flashy, complex line, missing a far simpler one.

The case for the defence is that I instantly saw a solution, 1 Nh5 Nh5 2 Bh7+! 3 Qh5+ 4 Bg7+! 5 R-lift having played this series of moves, or slight variations, dozens of times: no, that is not exaggeration: for a long while, until I got bored with it, I opened my blitz games with the Colle variation with Bb2, and against a typical classical defence from black, often played Ne5, f4, and if, as often happened, black challenged the Ne5 with Nf6-d7, then the double bishop sac, queen in and rook lift combination often worked.

Here too, the attack-sac-check-sac-lift plan works, so I was pleased with myself, looked at the solution, and, ouch! had totally missed the very simple 1 d6, a move that I should not have missed. If I had not made mistake #10, and instead approached the puzzle professionally, I would for sure have found it. Excuses, excuses of course.

Posted with Blogsy