Test your chess: Reitstein problem 128

White to play and win

in the diagram below, white threatens Nf6+ winning at least a piece, so black played Ne5.

K Dreyer v A Friedman 1961

Solution

This puzzle took longer than it should, because in the key line, I had the order of moves wrong in one line, and didn't try until too late to reverse the moves; so, instead, I tried other lines.

The move I wanted to play was 1 Qe6!, but at first I couldn't make it work, so instead I tried 1 Rf7?, but it fails after 1…Kf7[] 2 Qf5+ Bf6: black's king doesn't need to unprotect the Re6. I tried and tried to make 1 Rf7 work, before eventually swinging back to 1 Qe6…and solving it instantly; and then being puzzled about my prior difficulty, until it dawned on me by mistake. I wonder if GMs think linearly and cleanly all the time, or so they get confused too?

So, 1 Qe6! fe[] 2 Ne7+ Kh8 3 Be5! wins since 3…Rf1+ 4 Rf1 Qe8 5 Bd6 protects everything, and there is (not that it is necessary) there is also then the unstoppable threat of 6 Rf8+! 7 Ng6+ 8 Bf8 1-0. In my prior analysis, I played 3 Rf8+? Qf8 4 Be5 but after 4…Qe7, the game goes on.

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