It’s Your Move: daily chess puzzle #305

White to play and win

A jewel to savour

Savermuttu v Juhnke, Hamburg 1971

Solution

I played the prosaic 1 Qh5+ which wins easily enough after 1..Ke6, but 1…Kg8 is a tougher nut to crack. My engine plays sensible, defending the Nd5 by Rd1 and seeing what Black does. White is winning, but in a human-human game, it is unclear.

The engine suggests instead as its second choice 1 c4!! which has the cute point of keeping the Black Q out of the action after 1…bc.

But strongest of all is 1 Rf6+!! with some beautiful lines after 1..Kg8- lines which occurred in the game- but which are best discovered not by me writing them down, but by my readers with pieces and board. There are some joyful lines. [Think of this response as my Pierre de Fermat moment: there are some beautiful lines, but I am not going to show you them].