The first puzzle from Dragoslav Andric’s 1981 book “Matni Udar”.
White to play and win
Staunton v Harrison, London 1840
Solution
A fairly easy start to the book (and several of the first ones are easy, but they got harder).
1 Rg7+! Kh8 (1…Kg7 2 Bd4+ +-) 2 Bd4 etc.
Today, is the first of my next series of daily puzzles, having now chosen the next puzzle book which I shall be using.
It is a 1981 book by Dragoslav Andric, “Matni Udar” which I bought when back packing in Zagreb in 1982: where the book was published.
Whilst I have had the book for over thirty years, I have never dipped into it, because it has the annoying structure that the solutions are (i) right below each problem; and (ii) there is no indication of who is to play and win!
However, I would prefer not to use modern, engine checked, puzzle books, and instead want to continue with older books, in the hope that there might be surprises such as cooks. So, Matni Udar it is.
Presuming the language is Croatian, and using Google Translate, Matni Udar might mean “bearing strike”. Or it might mean “Mate strike”, or more likely “Check Mate” making my own guess of what Matni means. I will go with Check Mate for the moment, and hope a reader or friend will clarify.
The author, Dragoslav Andric, 10/11/1923-27/5/2005 was a writer, dramatist and poet: some details of his life are here and here; born in Serbia; he has a Wikipedia page but I can’t work out how to translate it into English. He has 26 games on chessgames.com . Teasingly, the website says one of his games is in an Irving Chernev anthology:
I will, over time, work through his chessgames.com page and Megabase, and try to find out which, and more of him as a player. and should find out which game Chernev used, as I learn more about Dragoslav. [Update: the ‘bolt from the blue’ game is this one]
Today’s puzzle is the cover picture
White to play and win
Solution
For today’s solution, I merely give the full cover page.
Even the cover gives me a surprise: I have known Labourdonnais name since I was a child, but, checking on Megabase 2012 (and finding no games) and then googling, I find his real name was Louis Charles Mahe De La Bourdonnais. My childhood memory/wording must have been an English abstraction of his real name, or perhaps my false memory.
I have not found the game from which the cover problem is taken, but nor have I looked hard. If I find it, I will include it later, on an update of this page.
Paying homage whenever it is due to my school mate Nigel, I had the following conclusion to a typical Sicilian Morra 3-0 blitz game.
The King walked from h1:
1…Rcd8 2 Qg4 (hitting Bh4 and g6) Rd6 3 Rd6 Qf2 4 Rg6 Qf1+ 5 Kh2 Qf2+ 6 Kh3 Bf6
7 Rf6
The cursed machine says this is equal, after the moves played in the game
7…Qh1+ 8 Kg5
and now 8…Nd4! since 9 Rd6 loses (9 Bd1=) to 9…Nf3+ 10 Kf5[] Qh7+ and 11..Nh4+ (there are other ways for Black to win)
But after 8…gf? 9 Kf6 discovered check, we pay small homage.
I have now finished my ‘pick of the best’ selection from Teschner and Miles’ “It’s Your Move”. I shall shortly start a new series, from a book that I have now selected, but first one or two random puzzles.
White to play and win
Allan Beardsworth v “Guestopedda” Internet Chess Club, 3-0 blitz, 6th May 2016
Solution
It is nice when you see non-elementary tactics in blitz. Here, 1 Bg6! wins, since if 1…Kg6 2 Qg3+ and 4 Re7 is fatal, and otherwise if 1…fg 2 Re7+ enters with decisive effect.
This is the last of my “pick of the best” from Teschner and Miles. Tomorrow, I will start a new series.
For the next couple of weeks, I shall, for a change, pick the top puzzles from the book I have just finished, Teschner and Miles’ “It’s Your Move”.
Loyal readers who have followed by blog for the last 345 days will have seen the puzzles. For new readers, or those who only dip in on occasion, many will be new. For my loyal readers, there isn’t much harm, and arguably some good in repetition, especially since my selection will be the hardest and prettiest puzzles: did you solve them last time?; if so, did you solve the puzzle faster this time.
In about a fortnight I will start my next series, based on a different puzzle book, which I am presently choosing. It will, as is my preference, be an old book, from the pre-computer checked era.
Today’s puzzle is here.
Enjoy!
For the next couple of weeks, I shall, for a change, pick the top puzzles from the book I have just finished, Teschner and Miles’ “It’s Your Move”.
Loyal readers who have followed by blog for the last 345 days will have seen the puzzles. For new readers, or those who only dip in on occasion, many will be new. For my loyal readers, there isn’t much harm, and arguably some good in repetition, especially since my selection will be the hardest and prettiest puzzles: did you solve them last time?; if so, did you solve the puzzle faster this time.
In about a fortnight I will start my next series, based on a different puzzle book, which I am presently choosing. It will, as is my preference, be an old book, from the pre-computer checked era.
Today’s puzzle is here.
Enjoy!
For the next couple of weeks, I shall, for a change, pick the top puzzles from the book I have just finished, Teschner and Miles’ “It’s Your Move”.
Loyal readers who have followed by blog for the last 345 days will have seen the puzzles. For new readers, or those who only dip in on occasion, many will be new. For my loyal readers, there isn’t much harm, and arguably some good in repetition, especially since my selection will be the hardest and prettiest puzzles: did you solve them last time?; if so, did you solve the puzzle faster this time.
In about a fortnight I will start my next series, based on a different puzzle book, which I am presently choosing. It will, as is my preference, be an old book, from the pre-computer checked era.
Today’s puzzle is here.
Enjoy!
I have been posting daily to my chess blog for a long while now, and get much enjoyment from it. It started as an idea: as my children reached late teenage/ adulthood, and as I reached the wrong side of 50, I didn’t want to be totally outpaced by technology, and wanted to have some idea of how a webpage is created, how blogs are done, and so on. And so I found wordpress.com and started to type.
And am still typing.
I principally blog for myself, solving a daily chess puzzle, and if others find it interesting, good, but that’s not the aim. What I do like though is the regular feedback I get, messages from around the World, and to a child of the 1960s it does seem bizarre how something typed in Stockport, Manchester, England, can get responses from anywhere in the World.
99.9% of the messages are welcome. A tiny fraction are negative, even hostile, even insulting: one of the best being from when I by mistake had a piece missing in one of my diagrams, causing my irate reader to vent his spleen, with abuse for my wasting his time. One thing I have learned from blogging is that typos in publishing are inevitable, however hard you try.
This blog is about one very nice message, from David Sheetz, a young programmer from Cleveland, Ohio. Dave also used WordPress and contacted me recently about his new site,
Dave has created a very nice site with pictures and information about numerous chess sets. My favourite, since I haven’t got a lego chess set, is:
Last year, I did a series of blogs about my own chess sets (too numerous to count), but Dave’s site has renewed my interest in the beauty of the sets and pieces of our game.
Go take a look at Dave’s site: for anyone who appreciates the beauty of chess, it is worth a look.
For the next couple of weeks, I shall, for a change, pick the top puzzles from the book I have just finished, Teschner and Miles’ “It’s Your Move”.
Loyal readers who have followed by blog for the last 345 days will have seen the puzzles. For new readers, or those who only dip in on occasion, many will be new. For my loyal readers, there isn’t much harm, and arguably some good in repetition, especially since my selection will be the hardest and prettiest puzzles: did you solve them last time?; if so, did you solve the puzzle faster this time.
In about a fortnight I will start my next series, based on a different puzzle book, which I am presently choosing. It will, as is my preference, be an old book, from the pre-computer checked era.
Today’s puzzle is here.
Enjoy!
For the next couple of weeks, I shall, for a change, pick the top puzzles from the book I have just finished, Teschner and Miles’ “It’s Your Move”.
Loyal readers who have followed by blog for the last 345 days will have seen the puzzles. For new readers, or those who only dip in on occasion, many will be new. For my loyal readers, there isn’t much harm, and arguably some good in repetition, especially since my selection will be the hardest and prettiest puzzles: did you solve them last time?; if so, did you solve the puzzle faster this time.
In about a fortnight I will start my next series, based on a different puzzle book, which I am presently choosing. It will, as is my preference, be an old book, from the pre-computer checked era.
Today’s puzzle is here.
Enjoy!
allanbeardsworth 