Test your chess: daily chess puzzle # 4

White to play and force a draw

The hint to the reader in Reitstein's book is that whilst at first it seems white has a strong attack, in fact he has to battle for a draw; and that there is a forced draw.

AA Ponelis v K Andersson 2003

Solution

I enjoyed this one: the various moves that need to be played are fairly evident, but putting them in a convincing order is a bit of a task.

Eventually I saw 1 Rd7! (diverting the queen from f6)

After 1…Qd7[] (1…Ne5 2 Re7 Nf3 3 Rb7 1-0) 2 Nf6+! gf [] (2…Kh8?? 3 Nd7 means that gf is forced) 3 Qg4+ Kh7 [] (3…Kh8?? 4 Rh6 mate) 4 Rh6+! and perpetual check on h4 and g4.

Very pretty.

A 2014 footnote: after writing the above, as usual I turned on Stockfish, to enter the position into my iPad, so I could add the diagrams. Stockfish said '-1.5’ and stuck with it, giving 1 Qe3 as best, so I was worried, got up to get my copy of the book, expecting to find the problem was cooked, but puzzled since the line was forcing. I thought maybe 1…Ne5 or 1…Nd4 might have a computer only resource in it: no, alas, Stockfish fails to solve this position, the perpetual being too far for its horizon. As soon as I entered 1 Qd7 it reappraised the position as 0.0.

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