It’s Your Move: daily chess puzzle # 41

White to play and win

Teschner's caption asks whether White must play 1 Qd1 as Black believed?

Johnson v Minev, Halle 1963

Solution

Alas, the diagram position in the Teschner book is wrong, omitting the Bf7. I struggled with the book's position before realising that 1 Qd3 Qd3 2 Re8+ is best but insufficient.

Fortunately, Megabase has the game, and showed me what was wrong. Then the same 1 Qd3 is fairly obvious and after 2 Re8+ White is winning.

White checks on g8, and if the king retreats, then checks on d5 and then forks with Be4+; if the king advances, it is in a mating net after 4 Re6+.

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