It’s Your Move: daily chess puzzle #335

Black to play and win

Examine: 1..Rh5 2 Bh5 a4 3 Nh3 b3 4 cb ab 5 a3. What happened next?

Sax-Kestler, Nice Olympiad 1974

Solution

The line given is at the periphery of my vision: but I could clearly see that 5…Ra3! had to be the move.

Black has so far only sacrificed the exchange, and the Pf5 is en pris, so the risk is fairly slight. Only in the above position need …Ra3! be calculated, and after 6 ba, Qa5! is natural, especially since White has no way to defend a3. Too many lines now, but intuitively, Black is winning: Q, b-pawn, N and if permitted the Nf6 and maybe Bc8-f5 are all in the attack.