Cordingley puzzle 122 # chess

White to play and win

Solution

An interesting puzzle, but cooked: and the cooking instructions aren't too hard to follow.

The 'solution' is the move I first thought of, 1 Ne5, which clearly intends to open up the long diagonal for the Queen-Bishop combination. So, first thing to check, is 'does it win' after black captures, and to answer this, you only have to see how to win if black plays Bf8 after Qh8+ Kf7, and it didn't take me long to spot the standard motif Rc7! decoying the queen to a square where it will be LPDO and skewered by Qh7+. The only other bishop move worth considering is Bd6, which prevents Rc7+, but then Qg7+ Kf7 Qf6 is mate.

So, capturing loses simply enough: though I did wonder whether this could be the puzzle which first employed the Rc7 skewering motif: there must alway be a first time?

But, what about the annoying non recapture? It is alway annoying, because often it is good for them, when opponent's refuse to play ball and capture your pieces or refuse to accept your sacrifices. So 1…Nb3! is a pretty natural nuisance try, and it is not to hard to see that after the string of captures, white is better, but black isn't dead lost.

Another thing to add is that white has nothing better than 1 Ne5: others such as 1Qh4 are no more than equal.

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