I have been terribly remiss in my Sunday Chess Problem responsibilities. So how about a charming little amuse bouche from the greatest of all endgame composers: Alexey Troitzky. The position below was composed in 1898 and calls for white to play and win.
A natural first reaction would be to give check with 1. Rc2 or 1. Qh1 or something like that. You’re welcome to give that a try, but I think you’ll find that white quickly runs out of checks. So we need to find something a bit more subtle.
The only way to win is the shocking 1. Re6+!
For what purpose is white sacrificing the rook? There are actually two points to white’s idea. The first is that, though it may seem hard to believe, the black rook has now been decoyed to a very bad square. The second point is that the f1-a6 diagonal is now open. White makes immediate use of that fact with 1. … Rxe6 2. Qa6+:
The point begins to emerge. If the black king moves to the seventh rank, then his queen will be lost to a skewer. But black isn’t finished yet. Play continues 2. … Kd5 3. Qc4+. Now what does black do? If he plays 3. … Ke5, he loses his queen to a new skewer, this time along the long diagonal. (White would play 4. Qc3+ and grab the black queen as soon the king moves.) So black must try 3. … Kd6 4. Qc5+,
after which it becomes clear that the black rook is on a very bad square indeed. That leaves only 4. … Kd7 5. Qa7+:
after which white grabs the black queen after all. The resulting position of K+Q vs. K+R is a forced win for the queen, though it is not at all easy to execute.
Cute! Troitzky was the master of this sort of thing. Very spare positions where one side is dominated by the other. Alas, this sort of thing is largely played out. Modern endgame studies are much more complex, but often harder to enjoy because of the difficult analysis required.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1LSYqqT
I have been terribly remiss in my Sunday Chess Problem responsibilities. So how about a charming little amuse bouche from the greatest of all endgame composers: Alexey Troitzky. The position below was composed in 1898 and calls for white to play and win.
A natural first reaction would be to give check with 1. Rc2 or 1. Qh1 or something like that. You’re welcome to give that a try, but I think you’ll find that white quickly runs out of checks. So we need to find something a bit more subtle.
The only way to win is the shocking 1. Re6+!
For what purpose is white sacrificing the rook? There are actually two points to white’s idea. The first is that, though it may seem hard to believe, the black rook has now been decoyed to a very bad square. The second point is that the f1-a6 diagonal is now open. White makes immediate use of that fact with 1. … Rxe6 2. Qa6+:
The point begins to emerge. If the black king moves to the seventh rank, then his queen will be lost to a skewer. But black isn’t finished yet. Play continues 2. … Kd5 3. Qc4+. Now what does black do? If he plays 3. … Ke5, he loses his queen to a new skewer, this time along the long diagonal. (White would play 4. Qc3+ and grab the black queen as soon the king moves.) So black must try 3. … Kd6 4. Qc5+,
after which it becomes clear that the black rook is on a very bad square indeed. That leaves only 4. … Kd7 5. Qa7+:
after which white grabs the black queen after all. The resulting position of K+Q vs. K+R is a forced win for the queen, though it is not at all easy to execute.
Cute! Troitzky was the master of this sort of thing. Very spare positions where one side is dominated by the other. Alas, this sort of thing is largely played out. Modern endgame studies are much more complex, but often harder to enjoy because of the difficult analysis required.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1LSYqqT
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