Another puzzle for an easy Reitstein day

Black to play and win

Mate in 4

Solution

This position was in one of my blitz games, four years or so ago, when I was keen on playing the Philidor as black.

I am actually a few weeks ahead in my Reitstein blog (I typically am about two weeks ahead, which I need to be, since sometimes work and family commitments give me no time for chess, and I tend to do several blogs in one session, especially when the puzzles are easy. The blogging software I use on my iPad (Blogsy, recommended) allows blog postings to be timed.

So, in a few weeks time there is a puzzle with a lot of similarities to this, and when I saw it, I recognised the game position as being from the line of the Philidor which I have played countless times, and (as here) if white is greedy, his king gets munched..so for the Reitstein puzzle which will be published later, I saw the pattern immediately.

The game continuation was 1…Qg1+! 2 Kd2[] Be1+! 3 Qe1 (3 Kd3 Ne5 mate) Qd4+ 4 Ke2 Bc4 mate.

Quite nice: of course, it was a nice finish to play but, alas, the pattern of attack, Q to the back rank, push the king forward, Nf7-e5, Bc8-e6-c4 is very typical of this line: the black pieces explode outwards (basically, if white takes the Ra8 in this line, black plays <<Qd8-e8-g6-g2; Ng4; Be7-h4+; Nf7-e5; Bc8-e6-c4>> in some order, and normally it is 0-1.

Remember this for the next few weeks….

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