It’s Your Move: daily chess puzzle # 189

White to play and win

Faibisovich v Bukhman, Leningrard 1967

Solution

A Ng7 capture is obvious, question is “why might it work?”. When you see that 1 Qa3+ fails to 1..c5, the Ne6 protecting the pawn on c5, the question simplifies to “which N”.

1 Nhg7! and if 1…Ng7 2 Qa3+ is 1-0: 2…Ke8 3 Ng7+; or 2…Kg8? 3 Nh6+ and 4 Nf7+ wins the queen.