Daily Chess Puzzle

Today’s problem is from the recent Grenke Classic.

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

Georg Meier v Magnus Carlsen, Baden-Baden 5/4/18

Solution

I watched most of this game ‘live’, on my ipad; and by the latter stage, was playing “guess the move” and also wondering “how is Magnus going to win this?”,  because I just assumed he would win, especially since he had managed to snaffle White’s pawn on a7 a move or two earlier. I thought he had done so at the expense of his king safety, but wasn’t sure, and just assumed he would consolidate, and then the a pawn would decide: typical Magnus.

Meier had about 3 minutes left (plus, I think 30 seconds increments-never sure with the clocks on Playchess) and I was choosing between 1 Rh1 and 1 Ra1; I wanted to play 1 Rh1 and say 1…Qe7 2 Rh7+ Kh7 3 Rh5+ but couldn’t make it work.

So, I played 1 Ra1, and not long later, so did Georg, and the game was drawn a few moves later.

But 1 Rh1! Qe7 2 Rh7+! Kh7 3 Rh5+ Kg6 does in fact win for White.

4 Rh6+!! the move I missed. Clearly, 4…Kh6 5 Qh5 mate.

So, 4…Kf7, but then still 5 Qh5+ and mate on g6 or h8 next move.

FEN

b4r1k/q5rp/8/3pQ1R1/p3p1B1/4P1P1/5PK1/5R2 w – – 0 39

Postscript

I have recently come across, thanks to someone posting on Twitter, the excellent Follow Chess app. Below is a screenprint I took, as is my habit when I get the time to watch live games, on which I scribbled 1 Rh1, being the move I wanted to look at later, to see if it won (as it did).

Follow Chess is the only app that I know that can let you see more than one game at a time on your ipad.