Test your chess: Reitstein problem 127
White to play
W Heidenfeld v M Kolnik 1947
Today's puzzle is in two parts (two blog postings). Reitstein's rubric was:
This is a case of an amazing double oversight. Heidenfeld could have won very quickly from the diagrammed position had he found the right move. What move did he miss?
The rubric continues with the move white played, and black's subsequent oversight.
This posting asks 'what should white have played'?
This one is worth thinking about.
Solution
Reitstein's solution says: Heidenfeld should have played 1 Bf4! leaving black with no good move. After blundering with 1 Bc7 Kolnik could have won by 1…e3+! 2 Ke3 Nd5+. Instead Kolnik played 1…Na8 and after 2 Ba5 White won after a protracted struggle.
I am not sure about all this. My 'solution' was 1 Bd6, which I think is 'as good as' 2 Bf4, but I am not sure that white is winning in either case. Firstly, in my line 1..e3+ 2 Ke3 Nc4+ still forks the LPDO bishop but after say 3 Ke2 Nd6, the knight doesn't protect a8, so 4 a8(Q) wins. Instead, though, after either 2 Bf4 or 2 Bd6 (or indeed after the game continuation 1 Bc7 Na8 2 Ba5, are such positions winning? I think black might be able to oscillate with his king ad nauseam, since if the B doesn't protect f2, white can never take on e4: and if the B is on the g1-a7 diagonal, then black can keep his king on f5 and oscillate with his N between a8 and c7.
I am intrigued as to how Heidenfeld won, suspecting it might be a subsequent bad blunder by Kolnik. I will look at this position another time, but for now think that the problem is cooked. If I subsequently see why white is winning, I will append to this blog.
Update: the positon after 1 Bd6! or 1 Bf4! is indeed won, but it needed an engine to show me, and Houdini took a long time to find the win. To do the position the service it deserves, I will do a separate blog posting.
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allanbeardsworth 