It’s Your Move: daily chess puzzle # 87

White to play and win

A great exercise: work hard on this one, unless it comes to you easily (for me, it didn’t, but I got there eventually)

Uitumen v Savon, Krakow 1964

Solution

Difficulty level: one and a half dog walks. I just couldn’t get this one, but knew I should, and having failed on one long dog walk in my local park, left the puzzle for another day, and then tried it again on my next day’s walk. Eventually I got there, and, maybe, it is simple ?!  I just couldn’t get the order right.

I tried many things: 1 Bg6+ Kg6 2 Rh6+; 2 f5+; 2 Rdg1+; without success; before stumbling on 1 Rh7+1? Nh7 2 Bg6+ Kg6 3 Rg1+, but not being able to break  3…Kh6!. In fact, checking now with my engine, 3..Kh6 is just a perpetual, as is 3…Ng5.

Eventually I reversed the move order.

1 Bg6+! Kg6 2 Rdg1+ Kf7

3 Rh7+!!

3…Nh7 and now not the line I had originally planned, 4 Rg7+ Kmoves 5 Re7+ Ke7 6 Qc7+ skewering the Nh7, since 7…Rh8 is perhaps near equal, but

4 Qh5+! Kf6 5 Qg6 mate.

Lovely. Full credit to White for finding this line in the actual game.