Daily Chess Puzzle

A third win in 2019 by Luke McShane: this mini-series done since the other day I searched on TWIC for Luke’s games as Black in 2019, to find his Saskirian win, and found that his score so far is -0 =6 +5.

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

Walton v McShane, Bunratty 22/2/2019

Solution

1…Ba4!

I wonder whether Luke was cool when playing this? No doubt he was, seeing it all to the end, but I would be so scared that I’d missed something.

2 Ba4 Kd3 3 Kg2 c2 4 Bc2+ Kc2 results in:

and 5 Kh3 Kd3 6 Kh4 Ke2! and White resigned.

Bravo!

I don’t know how reliable Chessbase’s quick analysis graphs are, but below is the graph of this game, where Luke was pressing straight from the opening (a Trompovsky).

FEN

8/8/2b5/8/P2k1p2/2p2P2/2B2K2/8 b – – 0 43