Daily chess puzzle: Check Mate #129

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

White to play and mate Black

Keres-Gauffin, Helsinki 1936

Solution

Fairly easy today, but still pretty. 1 Re5! Qe5[] 2 Qc6+! and mate next move.

Not for the first time in this book, the puzzle isn’t an actual game position, but a variation from the game: the book makes no mention of this, which is a pity.

This screenprint from Megabase shows that Black might well have seen the denouement and so played 16…Qg6 rather than 16…Ne5.

FEN

r3kb1r/1p3ppp/p3pq2/R3n1B1/1PQ5/2P2B1P/2P2PP1/5RK1 w kq – 0 17

Postscript

I haven’t heard of Thorsten Gauffin, the Finnish player who lost this game, but Megabase showed he played Paul Keres twice, the second time in the 1937 Stockholm Olympiad. Thorsten won in a steady, controlled, convincing manner, after Keres had his N stranded on a5, having then to sacrifice it for only two pawns; and White then kept control.