Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Knight to the rescue?


White to play: Black's last move was a knight retreat from e5 to f7, attacking the queen.

If White plays 1.Qe7 can Black save the day with 1...Ng5+, e.g. 2.Kg4 Nxe6 3.fxe6 Rxf4+?

13 comments:

ejh said...

By the way - it's best not to use a computer until you've had a go yourself. And if you do use a computer, please don't post any computer analysis here!

Anonymous said...

Suggestion: it would be a nice touch if you could post the FEN of the positions you discuss. I am pretty sure I'm not alone in doing analysis on the computer, without using a chess engine - setting up positions by hand on the computer takes even longer than doing it in meatspace.

ejh said...

What's a FEN?

David said...

See, for example, http://www.eddins.net/steve/chess/chessimager/fen-notation/. Assuming you have some sort of computer program it will likely produce a FEN string them for you. In Fritz it's rather counterintuitive: get to your position, then go File->New->Position Setup, and then hit the Copy Fen button to get it into your clipboard.

By the way, if whatever method you are currently using to produce your diagrams is anything less than convenient, I recommend the ChessImager per the link above.

ejh said...

Oh right, Forsyth notation basically.

I thought I wasn't encouraging people to use their computers!

Anonymous said...

"I thought I wasn't encouraging people to use their computers!"

People use their computers as an interface for analysis nowadays whether or not they're "cheating" by using a chess engine. It's quite convenient to use whatever computer interface you have to hand to move the pieces back & forth, with the added bonus that you can easily save the results to a file, and do (hopefully after-the-fact) checking of your results. That was the point of my first anonymous comment.

ejh said...

Ah, well the point of my comment was as a joke....

Anonymous said...

I would answer but I'm saving what's left of my brain for Wood Green tonight ...

Only that (and the fact that I haven't a clue) prevents me from giving the correct solution.

ejh said...

Well, you've got a couple of days: I'm off to the Basque Country for a few days tomorrow morning and then I trust Tom will activate a posting on Friday giving the answer.

Play the moves through on a board and see how you get on.

Anonymous said...

1. Rxh7+ Kxh7
2. Rh4+ Rh6
3. Rxh6 Nxh6
4. Qe7 R moves
5. d8=Q and wins

I can't believe this is right because if it is then why can't I do it in my games?

Mike G.

Anonymous said...

Mike -

How about 4... Qf6 ?

Anonymous said...

The Rxh7 variation is all very interesting, but presumably not relevant to the question which seems to specify 2. Qe7.

Richard

Anonymous said...

Oh, yes (Qf6).

Mike G.