Cordingley puzzle 149 #chess

White to play and win

Solution

I enjoyed this one. After toying with 1 Qh7+?? and 1 Bg6??, and after mistakenly thinking that the piece on b2 was a bishop, and trying 1 e4?? (which wouldn't work even if the b2 piece were a bishop) I looked at the next most obvious move, 1 Rf6, and exchanging off the rooks: but then what? Fortunately I know enough to look one more half move than is easy, say 3 Qh7, which attacks g6, which can't be defended, and also has the threat of bringing the black squared bishop, which I now saw was on e1, to h4 with check. Game over.

One little detail is that the black queen is LPDO, and the fact that it is geometrically aligned with black's king, means that there is one tactical element: after 3 Qh7, the threatened Qg6+ would skewer king and queen. Yet another example of the importance of LPDO.

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