Daily chess puzzle: Check Mate #103

Another puzzle from Dragoslav Andric’s 1981 book “Matni Udar”.

White to play and win

Jahrblum v Unden, Liege 1928

Solution

A nice puzzle today: the main motif is fairly easy to see- exploiting threats to Black’s bank rank. The execution needs care.

1 Bc7! Qf8[] 2 Bd6! Qd8[].

Now 3 Qg5 is clearly best, bringing one more piece to the party: but I couldn’t see how to defeat 3…Nf6, mainly since the White Re1 is LPDO, so there is a pin after 4 Be7 Qe8

But then 5 Bf6! and after 5….Qe1+ and 6 Bf1 decides.

FEN
r1bq2k1/pp3ppp/2p5/3p3n/3P1B2/3B4/PPPQ1PPP/4R1K1 w – – 0 1