Test your chess: daily chess puzzle # 29

White to play and win

JH Van Dyk v CL Verlinde 1960

Solution

A good exercise today. Had it been a game, and not a problem with a solution, I might not have looked hard enough at 1 cd! but as if was a problem, I knew this had to be the solution. Eventually I cracked it, and was pleased when I did. 1…Bc3 2 dc Qc8 3 Rac1 Be5 (say) 4 Rd7!

4…Qd7 5 c8(Q) is the main line, and once this is seen, everything else falls into place.

Black has other ways to defend, but a combination of threatening to take on d7, to promote, or sometimes to double attack Rb2 and Bd7 (eg if black plays Bb4) win for white. The only other line worth mentioning is that if black grovels with 1…c6, simply 2 Rac1 to keep control of the position, followed by advancing the a pawn will win.

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