Daily Chess Puzzle

Today’s problem is from one of GM Simon William’s postings.

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

Williams v Arkell, 2018

Solution

Simon says he learnt the technique from watching a Magnus Carlsen blitz game, he thinks on chess.com. I was impressed to see how such things are learnt.

1 Nc2! White promotes first, with the Black pawn on a2: then White checks and checks until the K is forced to a1 (or gives up the Pa2)

Then White stalemates the Ph2 by Kh2, forcing f5 or f6; gf, and the f pawn queens, in time because the g-pawn means there is no stalemate.

FEN

8/5p2/6p1/6P1/1N6/pPk3Kp/P7/8 w – – 0 1