Test your chess: daily chess puzzle

Black to play and win

Stefan Kindermann v Roman Slobodjan, German Ch. 18/11/99

Solution

I saw this in Raymond Keene's column in the Times, Jan 2000. I came across the clipping the other day: I must have torn it out, and put it somewhere safe to turn my attention to sometime, and then…found it fourteen years later.

Looked at now, in 2014, it doesn't seem that hard, and I wonder why I tore it out- nowadays I only do so when I can't solve newspaper puzzles on inspection. So, 1…Ne4! and if 2 fe, 2…Qh4 and either mate follows on h1 or white must take the Rf4 and then the win is trivial.

When I entered the position into Stockfish to produce the above diagram, it suggests 1…Qh4 as even stronger (in the machine sense -6 is better than -4): and indeed, it is 'correct' since after 2 Qe3 Ne4, white's best sacrifice is 3 Qe4, and the resultant end position is even more in black's favour. But from a mere human perspective, 1…Ne4 removes the need to look at 2 g3 after 1…Qh4- not that it survives, 2…Qh1+ 3 Kf2 Ne4+ is gruesome. A boxer's second would thrown in the towel.

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