Daily Chess Puzzle

I saw today’s problem in a recent edition of my favourite magazine, Chess.

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

Milson v Burnett, Newcastle

Solution

Another lovely problem, which took me a while to solve; but once solved, a lot of satisfaction.

1 Ne7+ Kf8! (best) 2 Nc8!!

Defeating other defences by Black such as 1…Be7 or 1…Kf7 is trivial; but 2 Nc8!! is lovely. The Nc8 blocks the square e7, so 2…Qc8[] 2 Qh8+ and the Q is skewered.

FEN

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