This is a neat one. Maybe not too difficult. Black just played 1. – Rh5 and attacked the white queen.
Do you see the winning move for white? (Solution)
Chess puzzle #47 Totally crazy
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 #46
I found this one on chessbase. It is a bit drafty around both kings. But it is white to move. Therefore: white plays and wins. How? (solution)
PS. A couple of days after I posted this puzzle, I added some variations to the solution.
The all import patterns and themes in chess
The purpose of chess is of course to mate the enemy king. There is nothing more fascinating than an all out attack on the enemy king.
But how many times does this happen in our games? Maybe not so many times as we would hope for. At least that’s my personal experience.
One should develop an eye for it. Some help might be very useful. Strange enough there aren’t many books written about this subject. One such book is ‘Mating the Castled king’ by GM Danny Gormally. This book is solely dedicated to attacking the enemy king, in the place where the monarch thinks he is safe, when castled. One of the main themes in this book is pattern recognition. Danny writes:
“Chess players should have the ability to remember and recognize patterns and themes that repeatedly occur in practice. The more examples we see, the more ingrained these patterns will become until eventually they are second nature.”
Indeed when you recognize certain motifs the good moves almost automatically pop up in our minds. See for instance the first diagram. Can you see how white can obtain a winning advantage? Please think for a while before you read on.Read More »
Chess puzzle #46: how to break black’s defenses?
At first glance it seems black is in time to defend his king. White still found a way to destroy black’s defenses. Do you see how he did it? Solution…
Chess puzzle #45: a though nut to crack
I 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 »
Review: Pawn structures you should know (DVD)
Nowadays there are lots of DVD’s in circulation. In my opinion the quality of these DVD’s differs hugely. Some are great, some are mediocre and some are quite bad.
Generally there is a divide between the native English speakers and non-natives. Most of the British excel in their presentation. Some of the non-natives are below parr because they speak with a heavy foreign accent or are constant lost for words. Some of them lack presentation skills.
One of the top producers of dvd’s is Chessbase. I am sorry to say that Chessbase doesn’t escape the pattern of the good, the mediocre and the downright bad. Today I review the newest Chessbase DVD:
Pawn structures you should know by Adrian MikhalchishinRead More »
Chess puzzle #44: it is not what you might think
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…
Chess puzzle #43: tricky move
By the first looks of it black is in big trouble. He is two pawns dawn and his pieces are very loose.
Is there a way out of this quandary? Well there is. It is a very glorious one. Do you see how? Solution…
Source: problem #166673 ChessTempo
Bad thinking habits will kill our chess ability
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 »
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