Test your chess: Reitstein problem 113

Black to play (after 1 Be8)

Reitstein says 'Gannholm sacrificed a piece to reach this position. He can regain it now with 1 Re8+ or the move he played, 1 Be8. Did he make the right choice?

After 1 Be8

T Gannholm v DP Laurie. 1977

Solution

Alas, I failed with this one, thinking that 1…d3+ was the solution, the idea being that after 2 Kf1[] Re1+ 3 Ke1[] Qe3+ 'there might be something': high quality thinking, as you can see. I saw 4 Kd1?? Qe2mating, and only briefly looked at 4 Kf1[] Qe2+ 5 Kg1[] and lazily thought there was a draw by 5…Qe3+, but in fact after a bit of dancing with queen and rook, white wins: 6 Rf2 Qe1+ 7 Rf1[] Qe3+ and the king scurries away to safety with 8 Kh1, and the d3 pawn doesn't promote. This was poor of me, and I should have been able to try harder and see 1…dc+! 2 Kf1[] Re1+ 3 Ke1[] Qg1+! 4 Ke2 (4 Rf1 Qe3+ 5 Kd2[] Qe2+ and mates) Nd4+ (the point) 5 Kd3[] Qd1+ 6 Kc3 (6 Ke3 Qd2 mate) Ne2 mate.

Whilst quite long, most of white's moves are forced, so my school report for this puzzle is 'should try harder'.

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