Well Streatham & Brixton Chess Club, I've been up for an hour and a half, and whilst I'd like to say 'Good Morning' to you, the truth is we're moving house today, half-packed, have to rush out for a van, then traverse London a few times, in order to trudge all our stuff up four flights of stairs. At times like this I start to puzzle over why I've never won the lottery, or why someone isn't paying me half a million dollars to lose to Fritz. I can easily do that any day of the week. Lose to Fritz, I mean, not win the lottery.
Still, at least Bob sent me a fabulous puzzle to solve, saying: "You asked for remarkable positions, well here's one from an Andersson game v anonymous. I found it in a book printed 1944. I have my suspicions about it's authenticity, but it's a great position. Don't you dare use a chess engine on this!"
It's white to play - and indeed, I think I just solved it without assistance. Enjoy doing the same.
6 comments:
Actually, you can figure it out by a relatively easy brute force method, since White's first move obviously must deliver check and there are only a few checks on the board.... But it is still very pretty: 1.Qe6+!! Qxe6 2.Nd7 Qxd7 3.Rb8+ Kxb8 4.cxd7 and the pawn promotes to a queen with mate.
I jumped through a lot of hoops.
The first was 1. Rb8+ followed by queen checks. The second was stalemate attempts - there are several and they all seem to fail - but that lead me to the 1. Qe6+ idea. Then I looked at 1. Qe6+ Qxe6 2. Nd7 Qxd7 3. cxd7 but figured black had too many pawns for that to be the solution. Then finally the penny dropped.
So - no brute force for me, partly as I didn't know if white was playing to win or draw. Anyhow - glad you liked it.
I found it Tom - great stuff. Don't believe anyone that claims to have solved it without them having a decent OTB rating. This isn't a mickey mouse mating puzzle.
My first attempt, and thinking it was easy was Rb8+ but that fails eventually to Qc8. So logic dictates, the queen must be distracted from mating on g2, which leaves Qe6+ to look at. The subsequent rook decoy and pawn capture is quite beautiful indeed. Solving time total: less than 2 minutes, without engine :)
Kingscrusher
Well done Kingscrusher!
Under two minutes!?
Very impressive.
It took me about fifteen minutes over breakfast!
Well done - and glad you liked it.
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