Cordingley puzzle 121 #chess

Black to play and win

Solution

I am not sure about this one. Not sure in the sense that I don't know if I solved it or not, or if there is a solution. Certainly I didn't for the moment consider the move played in the game; and, alas, I don't really see the point of it.

Firstly, an appraisal of the position. Black is the exchange up, white's king is a bit exposed, white has no LPDOs, the lack of a black squared black bishop means that the geometrical alignment of white's king and queen can't be exploited, and black's knight is dangerously offside. So, unbalanced, and all I could think of was drawing the king out, by 1…Re2+ when 2 Ke2 Qg3 is forced, and then white has a number of options, but 3 Qf2 is the most natural, when 3…Re8+ and then the position to me is 'unclear': but in practice I would doubt black is worse. That's about all I could see.

In the game, black played 1…Bg4 which I don't really get. The attached analysis shows that white could have defended better, and I think in all likelihood both my move and the game move are equivalent in value: Houdini, to the extent I have given it time to think, assesses the best line as level, though the evaluations swing.

On reflection , maybe the only point of 1…Bg4 is so it can't be captured by Nd7, and capturing by fg exposes the king after Ng4+. Maybe, but I am not sure.

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