Test your chess: daily chess puzzle

October 16, 2014

White to play and win

White missed the winning line in this position, which I saw in Malcolm Pein's Daily Telegraph column. The fact that a world class player missed the line shows it is one to study.

Lenier Dominguez v Rustam Kazimdzhanov FIDE Grand Prix, Baku Sept 2014

Solution

At first, I couldn't solve this puzzle, so as is my wont, I tore the positon out of my paper, and carefully, without looking, also tore off the solution.

Clipping in my pocket, it took one standard British unit of time measurement to solve it- the time to make cup of tea, by which time I had the light bulb moment, and had earned a smile. One of the joys of chess to me is to be able to enjoy the little moments when positions are solved, especially as here when they are nice.

Looking at the Purdy motifs, examine all biffs leads to Nb6?? and similarly bad moves like Ne7+ Nf6+ Bf8 Qd4 Qe5 all of which are atrocious, and even c5 falls within the same mantra. The jump biff Qe4-b7 is flagged, as well as the examine all pins, nets, forks and ties: the Rd7 is tied to defending the Qb7 (from the jump biff) and Ne7+ would fork K and R.

Putting all these together leads to 1 Ne7+!! Re7[] (1…K moves, Qs are exchanged, then Nc8, and white is a rook up) 2 Be7 Qe7[] 3 Qd4! exploiting the Q and R e file alignment. If 3…Qb7+, 4 Qd5+ (or 4 Qe4), so it is game over.