Daily chess puzzle: Check Mate #108

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

xxx (see below) to play and win (i.e. decide which side is to play first)

Vidmar v Euwe, Karlovy Vary {per the book, Karlsbad per Megabase) 1929

Solution

The book doesn’t say which side is to win: normally it is obvious, and when it isn’t obvious, a quick look at the players’ names makes it all clear: Alekhine v unknown, simul, is likely to be 1-0 (though not always: puzzle 111 is a case in point, where the well known player loses).

Here, I struggled for a while, thinking that White is so much material up he can win prosaically (and he can) so ‘it’ must be a Black to play and win, and yet he doesn’t have enough pieces to do anything, particularly since White’s pieces control the long white diagonal.

I then thought ‘it must be a quick forced win for White’ and immediately found it: in hindsight, I suspect I have seen the position before.

1 Re8+ Bf8 (1…Kh7 is prosaic: 2 Qd3+ and 3 Qf5+ exchanges the queens) 2 Rf8+! Kf8 (else 3 Rf7+ 1-0) 3 Nf5+