Cordingley puzzle 222 #chess

White to play and win

Solution

I really enjoyed this puzzle, despite the fact that once I analysed it later with Houdini, it showed me many things that I had not seen.

Had it been a game, I would have looked at 1 Nh6+! , rejected it because of 1….Be5!, and no doubt played 1 Ng6+, and won prosaically. As it was a puzzle, I rejected Ng6+! for something better, 1 Bb1!. They all merit exclamation marks because they all give overwhelming advantages.

Looking at the game continuation first, 1 Nh6+!, I missed how strong white's attack was even after 1…Be5. White can recapture either way, and then play Rg3 with overwhelming threats to come into g7 or g8. I am slightly disappointed that I could not calculate this.

Instead, 1 Ng6+ wins easily since one day there will be a sac on h6 followed by (typically) g6-g7: precisely how depends on black's response. I saw this, but because I was 'into' this position, I looked for something better and found the very nice retreat 1 Bb1! threatening 2 Qc2 with an unstoppable battery on the b1-h7 diagonal.

The analysis below gives some further lines, including some pretty ones.

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