Category: Chess puzzle

Chess puzzle 49: neat moves

Michel HoetmerLeave a comment

Last Saturday I played my first game since March last year. I was a bit rusty. Although I solved a lot of tactical puzzles almost every day, I missed a simple (standard) tactic.

Even after missing this chance I still got a good game. And then? Disaster. I thought I could snatch a pawn. It turned out to be a bad miscalcultation and spoiled a promising position. After that things went down hill very fast ad I lost. Do you see what I missed?

It seems I am in need for a lot of training (and probably more active play). Today I received the book ‘Training with Moska’. It is packed with exercies. I seems to be a great book to study and might be of some help to develop my skills. Which, as you’ve seen, are quite poor.

See the second diagram. White to move and gain a wining advantage. Solution…

Chess puzzle #47 Totally crazy

Michel HoetmerLeave a comment

Even after a quick look you will see that this position is totally crazy. White has a material advantage, but most of his pieces are en prise. 

What makes matters even more complicated is the pawn on b2 that is about to queen and give mate.

Is there a way out of this mess? Can white achieve the impossible and even win this position?

Yes, he can. It is up to you to figure this one out. Solution…

If found this fantastic puzzle on Johan Salomon’s twitter account. Johan is the present Norwegian Champion and is well on his way to become a grandmaster. You will find more intriguing puzzles on his account.

Chess puzzle #45: a though nut to crack

Michel HoetmerLeave a comment

winning-advantageI have to confess that sometimes I spend quite a lot of time at chess puzzles. I can’t stand it when I am unable to find the correct solution.

When I make a mistake, which happens still too often, I can get very annoyed with myself.

Most of these mistakes occur when I find the solution rather quickly. Then get overconfident and don’t check very well and make stupid blunders on the second or third move in the combination. On the other hand, when I can’t find the correct solution, I keep on trying.

I follow my hunch and calculate the variations over and over again. That doesn’t work either (of course). One might raise the question: do you trust your own calculation yes or no? Seemingly not.Read More »

Chess puzzle #44: it is not what you might think

Michel HoetmerLeave a comment

I found this one from the chessbase website (first round report by Albert Silver). This position is from the game between Sam Shankland (USA) and Joan Fernandez Lopez (Andorra) after black’s last move 15. – Qb6? White can get a winning position. But how?

The obvious 16. b5 doesn’t work. What will? It took me a while to figure this one out, and of course I didn’t see all the variations. But at least I found the wining move. 🙂 Solution…

Bad thinking habits will kill our chess ability

Michel HoetmerLeave a comment

If you follow this blog for a while, you know by now that I love to solve tactical puzzles. What you see on this blog is just a fraction of the puzzles I have solved (or screwed up). Messing up is very easy to do. I had my share of big failures.

Maybe it is a good idea to ask myself the question: what goes wrong? Why do I keep making silly mistakes in (sometimes) quite easy positions? Well the position in the diagram is certainly not very easy. In fact it is a bit complicated.

In order to solve this puzzle (and many others) it might be a good idea to look for a while what is exactly going on. What’s being attacked? What are weak spots? Are there any pins? Loose pieces? Endangered kings? A bit more abstract: what are the motifs? Do you see them?Read More »