Daily Chess Puzzle

Today’s problem is another nice recent victory by Luke McShane.

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.

Black to play

Sarakauskas v McShane, 4NCL 17/3/19

Solution

1…f4! the idea of which is to divert the Bg3 from its square, so it can’t capture the Nh4

2 Nf4 Rf4! 3 Bf4[] Bg2!

White captured the B, but Black forked K and Q, and soon mopped up.

The whole game- on TWIC- is worth playing through, to see how Luke (2661) outplayed a (for him) weaker player (2431) from a fairly level position.

Not many moves earlier, the position had been:

Luke lost the Pc7 by a tactic, but in compensation, Nd6-f4-h5 and f7-f5 gave him an awesome attack: this period of moves reminds me of the discussion in Game Changer by Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan of AlphaZero’s sacrifices for time.

FEN

r4rk1/pb1qb1pp/1p6/2p2p2/7n/3PN1B1/PPPQNPPP/R3R1K1 b – – 0 21