It’s Your Move: daily chess puzzle # 138

White to play and win

Mermagen v Kühne, corres 1966

Solution

I flunked this one, not being able to work out in my head whether 1 Qg6+!! works, and instead settling for 1 Nh5! which also wins, but not as nicely.

Firstly, my line: 1 Nh5! Ne5 (1…Nf8 2 Nf6+ Kh8[] 3 Qg8mate, the Nf8 blocking the Re8’s sight of g8) 2 Nf6+ Kh8[] 3 Ne5!, the point being that 3….Qf7 4 Nf7+ is mate; so 3…de 4 Qg6+ -.

But 1 Qg6+!! is forced mate, unless Black chickens out with 1…Kh8, when the win is prosaic.

So, 1…Kg6 2 Ne5+ Kf6:

Of course I saw this position, and even saw 3 Rf2+! but I thought it lost control over the Pd5 so that 3…Ke5 runs away, but then 4 Rf5mate, the move I missed. The Rd2 is a star performer.

So, instead. 3…Ke7, when 4 Nc6+

And capturing the Nc6 is forced: 4….Qc6; then 5 Bg5 mate.

What happened to me was typical. There are a lot of variations, a lot of ways that white could check and check, but too many responses to each; confusion struck, and I found a good alternative, but missed the best.

Posted with Blogsy