Another puzzle for an easy Reitstein day

White to play and win

Drozdowski-Mejak 2013

Puzzle seen in Chess Today CT4810

Solution

Two Purdy maxims come into play here: his concept of never failing to consider nets (here, the Qg7 is in a bit of a net, and soon the Kg8 will be too) and examine all biffs.

So, 1 Bh6! Qh8 (for 1…Rcd8!, see below)

and again, examine all biffs 2 Bf7+! Kf7[] 3 Qa2+! Bd5 4 Qd5 mate.

The harder defence is 1…Rcd8!. At first I thought white had no better than 2 Qd8! winning the exchange after 2….Qh6 3 Qd3, when after 3…Qg5 4 Ra2 protects everything, but the game still has to be won. In this line, I also looked at 3 Qe8+? Ne8 4 Rf7, but 4…Kh8 5 Re7 is met by 5…Qe3+ 6 Kh1 Bg2+! 7 Kg2 Qg5+ and the LPDO Re7 drops off. Also, whilst 2 Qc1 must be better for white, with black's queen stuck at h8, the simple (but optically hard to play) 2 Bd5! wins just like after 1…Qh8: 3…Rd5 4 Nd5 Qh8 5 Ne7+ 1-0, or 2…Qh8 3 Bf7+! all the same: 3…Kf7[] 4 Qa2+ Bd5 5 Nd5 1-0

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