It’s Your Move: daily chess puzzle #342

White to play and win

Planinc v Belyavsky, Hastings 1974-75

Solution

The next day after yesterday’s puzzle, Planinc had another striking finish.

Here, not too hard, at least to play some forcing moves. The evaluation of the resultant position was harder for me to judge, but I could solve the puzzle to the extent of knowing what White’s best line was (even if I couldn’t see how strong the end position was).

1 e5! de[] 2 Ne6! Ke6

3 Qg4+! (! because from g4, rather than d5, it hits the Pb4/ Na4)

3..Ke7[] (3…Kd7? 4 Rd7+) 4 Qb4+ Kf7 5 Qb3+! forcing the King back into the centre) Ke7 6 Qa4.

And White is better: Black’s king is more exposed, and if e.g. Black sacs his e5 pawn (e5-e4) then the effect is to open up his king as much as White’s.