Daily Chess Puzzle

Today’s problem is from the 1972 book “Chess Combination as a Fine Art”, a book based on articles published in the 1950s-1960s by Kurt Richter.

Since the start of 2018, I have decided to adopt the style of only saying which side is to play: and not giving an idea if the move wins or otherwise, unless on occasion I think signposting would be helpful. Instead, the problems are posed with the instruction to decide what you would play, as in a game.

White to play

Blumenthal v McGunnigle, corres 1962

Solution

This position continues from yesterday’s puzzle.

Reader’s of Jacob Aagaard will know about “bringing all the pieces to the party” and indeed simple evolution (another of his phrases) works here: 1 Rf3 (strangely, my engine slightly prefers 1 Rf2) 1…Kg8 2 Rbf1 and White is winning.

Apparently we are in +8 territory, but for me, it is in “better for white, easy to mess up” territory.

In the game, Black played 2…Ng6 when simple steady play by 3 Qg5 or 3 Qe3 is +9 (apparently), but in the game, White played the crowd pleaser (but it was a correspondence game) 3 Qg7+, which the book gives as !! but in fact is ??

I will continue this puzzle tomorrow, and show what the players and annotators missed.

FEN

2r2n1k/2qr2pp/p6Q/1b1p1N2/1ppB4/3P3P/1PP3P1/1R3RK1 w – – 0 3