Sunday, November 30, 2008

Sunday puzzle


White to play.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ng2?

ejh said...

We'll have some supporting variations thanks, otherwise we'll think you've just looked it up on a database...

Anonymous said...

1 Ng6

If 1...Kxh3; 2 Nf4+ Nxf4; 3 Kxa7 and 4 Kb6 queening

If 1...Nb4; 2 h4 Nxa6; 3 h5 and I guess the h-pawn gets through

If 1...Nb4; 2 h4 Kg4; 3 errr, hhmm

There's something here, I just know it - or not, it appears

David
Atticus CC

Anonymous said...

Ah...OK, try 1 Ng2 with the same ideas as my first go, but now the N is invulnerable

Tom Chivers said...

I reckon 1.Ng2 suggests itself on purely positional grounds! It drags the black pieces in the wrong direction, in one way or another.

Anonymous said...

1Ng2 was the first move I thought of. But then I did know it was a puzzle and it seemed a puzzle answer, especially with dislodging the black N if black takes the pawn or the knight.
Andrew

ejh said...

Anyway, it is indeed 1.Ng2. It's from Pfleger-Larsen, Manila 1974 (the Great Snake Variation, it says here) and I personally nabbed it from a copy of Chess Today (number 2829) some weeks ago. Alex and the boys give these lines:

(a) 1...Kxg2 2.h4

(b) 1...Nb4 2.h4 Kg4 3.Kxa7

(c) 1...Kxh3 2.Nf4+! Nxf4 3.Kxa7 Nd5 (3...Ne6 or 3...Nd3 4.Kb6) 4.Kb7.

Larsen resigned after the key move.

(CT also give 1.Ng6? Nb4! 2.h4 Kg4=.)

Anonymous said...

I would have thought the Great Snake would only occur if the a pawn got to a6 establishing a "snake" of e2-a6. In the game it got to a6 but only on move 52, when they snake had long since been chopped up.
Andrew