Cordingley puzzle 248 #chess

White to play and win (or not, as it turns out)

Whilst cooked, it is not a worthless exercise. Try to find the move played in the game (not too hard, in my view) and then try to find black's best defence (which wasn't played) and also how to defeat black's poorer defence.

Solution

1 Nf7! is an obvious biff, which needs to be calculated. The choice of first move is made easier in that there are no sensible alternatives, since retreating the N can't be a winning solution. So 1…Kf7[] and either 2 f4 or 2 Bc4+ have to be considered the former well met by 2…ed, keeping the f file closed. So 2 Bc4+ is the move and I would fairly quickly fix on 2…Ke8, merely giving 2….d5 a quick look to see if it helped in any way, and hardly looking at 2…Ke7- because of the tangle it puts black's pieces in. I would only revert to 2…Ke7 if 2…Kd7 clearly failed.

In fact, Anderssen played 2…Ke7?? and after 3 Qh5 Qe8?? (Black is lost, but this loses in two ways) white played 4 Qg5+! which is pretty, but not too hard, especially since 4 Bg5+! also mates in 2.

I am not sure what Anderssen missed. After 2…Ke8! 3 Qh5[] Qf6 the least that can be said is that Black is not losing horribly. In fact, if then 4f4, then 4…ed keeps the f file closed. He may have missed the nice lines which arise when the Nc6 is on e5: then, Bg4! comes with venom.

Houdini assesses black as slightly better in the initial position, and also in the resultant position.

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