Monday, June 01, 2009

The best move I never played

Here's a little puzzle to get your little grey cells puzzling merrily away this Monday morning.

In this position, from an online Chess960 blitz game, it's white to play and, indeed, win. That's not the puzzle though: with five white pieces pointing menacingly at the black king, some kind of breakthrough is obviously on the cards. And indeed, with 11.Rxh6 gxh6? 12.Nxe7+, I forced my opponent's resignation.

Instead, the puzzle is how does white win most accurately after 11. Rxh6 Be5! - the most defiant defence? If you want a clue (and an incentive) the !! comes on move 14. And frankly, I'm not sure two exclamation marks are quite enough . . .

PS. It being Chess960, I ought point out that whilst black has already castled, white has yet to do so (and indeed in the diagram position above, has not moved either king or rooks.)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

what about...

11. Rxh6 Be5
12. Rxg6 Bxb2
13. Rxg7+ Kh8
14. Ke2 …

seani

Anonymous said...

In this line 14.Ke2 allows Black to complicate with ...Qh2, so maybe 14.f4 first. Of course Black can't capture either the bishop or the rook.

And what about 12...fxg6 13.Nxe7+ Kh8. Now White could play 14.Ke2 but 14.0-0-0 is more artistic.

Mandarin

Tom Chivers said...

Mandarin has it! Very good.

Neill Cooper said...

With a white rook on c1 how can he play O-O-O?

Tom Chivers said...

Hi Neill. In Chess960, irrespective of where the king and rook start, the final castled position is the same as in chess. So O-O-O always means Kc1 and Rd1; O-O means Kg1 and Rf1.