Smorgasbord VIII: Mother's Day By Jeff Coakley Welcome to the Chess Cafe. Please sit wherever you like. A waiter will be right with you. This week's menu features triple loyd 44, inverted loyd 18, proof game 45, and goof 30. Free refills on all puzzles! The types of problems presented here have appeared before on The Puzzling Side of Chess. If you are unfamiliar with them, examples with more detailed explanations are available in the archives. 1. Triple Loyd 44 [FEN "8/8/R7/4B3/8/4N3/8/K6R"] Place the black king on the board so that: A. Black is in checkmate. B. Black is in stalemate. C. White has mate in one. In an inverted loyd, the black king is already on the board, and … [Read more...]
Petroff Defense [C42]
Petroff Defense [C42]By Abby MarshallTo my surprise I have never covered the Petroff Defense in any of my columns. The reputation of the Petroff as a boring, drawish opening is starting to change. In the positions I want to look at in this column, early on Black trades a knight for a bishop to create an interesting imbalance. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 White may be mentally rehearsing the Ruy Lopez or the Italian Game, but instead of 2...Nc6 comes... 2...Nf6 [FEN "rnbqkb1r/pppp1ppp/5n2/4p3/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 0 3"]Don't let the initial symmetry fool you. Regardless of how White plays, the position soon becomes unbalanced with different goals for each side. In the variation I am looking at … [Read more...]
And the Good News Is
And the Good News Is By Gary Lane What to do when White does not want to play in the spirit of the Semi-Slav? This the question posed by Mike Baird from Scotland. He writes, "I have attempted to master the Semi-Slav, but alas I do not always have the opportunity to play the variations I have learned. A new problem is the plan of a queenside fianchetto when I no longer know the right moment to play ...dxc4. Can you help?" The Semi-Slav is certainly a favourite amongst tournament campaigners and the good news is that you can adapt the variations to suit your needs. In this case against a queenside fianchetto, you should develop in the usual manner associated with the opening, but … [Read more...]
Chess Mazes #384
Chess Mazes #384There are two types of chess mazes: checking and mating. For bishop, rook, and knight mazes the play is to check the black king. For queen, pawn, and king mazes the object is to checkmate the enemy king; here checks are not allowed. The rules in common for each type of maze are as follows: Black never moves. Only the maze piece (in the case of pawns – the maze units) may move. A maze piece may never move to a square where it can be captured by enemy forces. A maze piece may capture undefended enemy forces.Plus we look for the shortest solution. Helpers in queen and king mazes are frozen to the diagram position, unable to move or be removed. In pawn mazes promoted pawns … [Read more...]
Queen vs. Pawn
Queen vs. PawnBy Bruce PandolfiniKing and queen against a lone king? No contest. With the move (it might be important to have the move to avoid stalemate), the force of king and queen wins hands down. But what if the inferior side has an extra pawn about to promote? Is it still a forced win? Well it often is, with some notable exceptions.Having the move, the queen can beat either a center pawn or a knight pawn usually without much trouble, even if the friendly king is a distance away. The winning idea is to give a series of checks, leading to the defending king's forced obstruction of its own pawn. That gives the attacker a tempo, which can be used to bring the friendly king a square closer. … [Read more...]
A Nice Win by Nakamura
This month we present a lightly edited excerpt from Chess Evolution Top GM Secrets Newsletter #164. Top GM Secrets is released every Friday of the week. The newsletter contains twenty-plus pages of great chess material written by top grandmasters Arkadij Naiditsch and Csaba Balogh, along with theoretical articles by GM Alexander Khalifman, puzzles, endgames, and more.A Nice Win by NakamuraBy Csaba BaloghTroff,Kayden W (2532) - Nakamura,Hikaru (2798)ch-USA 2015 Saint Louis USA (8.1), 09.04.2015Modern Benoni [A62]Nakamura has convincingly won the U.S. Championship. Let's examine one of his victories. 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 c5 4.d5 exd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.Nc3 g6 [FEN … [Read more...]
Queenfest V: Harem Scarum
Queenfest V: Harem Scarum By Jeff Coakley Queenfest rolls on with more puzzles involving multiple queens. The task is to arrange the queens on the board to achieve certain goals. The first part of the first puzzle is very easy, but figuring out the number of possible solutions is perhaps an interesting challenge. Queenfest #16 (four queens) [FEN “8/8/8/8/8/8/8/8”] Place four queens on the board so that each queen is defended by every other queen. How many solutions are there? Earlier Queenfests can be found in the archives: A Royal Heyday, Second to None, We Will Rock You, Breaking Free. The next puzzle explores the lower limits of queen mobility. Except for 17a, all par … [Read more...]
A Very Strong Tournament
A Very Strong Tournament By Bo Bredenhof We are closing in on the fifth anniversary of CC Chronicles. It has been fun all the way. I hope you think the same. All previous columns can be found in the ChessCafe.com Archives. This month I will look at one of the strongest ever CC tournaments: the Witold Bielecki Memorial, which finished recently after over three years play. Thirteen players with ten GM's and three SIM's with ratings between 2561 and 2729. The crosstable can be found at the ICCF website via their "Tables and results" page. There were many interesting aspects to this tournament: one was that two players shared first place with identical results and SB points. Both Dr. … [Read more...]
Master and Patron: Frank Marshall and Herman Behr
Master and Patron: Frank Marshall and Herman Behr By John S. Hilbert Love of chess takes many forms. Some very lucky individuals have the combination of ability, opportunity (some might say necessity) and personality that allows them to become great masters. Others love the goddess Caissa just as deeply, but are unable or unwilling to devote the lifetime of toil required by her for the highest honors. And sometimes lovers of the game are in a position to offer material assistance to those whose devotion has cost them material gain. Such was the case between Frank Marshall, long-time national champion of the United States, and Herman Behr, long-time lover of the game. When Marshall … [Read more...]
Zwischenschach
Zwischenschach by Karsten Müller Zwischenschach is German for in-between-check, which is an important technique in the rook endgame. 164.01 Fabian,Jaroslav (2275) - Pinter,Erik (2196) SVK-chT3B 0001 Slovakia (9), 2001 [FEN "8/8/8/5K2/8/6P1/r7/1k6 b - - 0 52"] Black must play the zwischenschach 52...Rf2+! But not the other check 52...Ra5+? 53.Kf6 Kc2 54.g4 Kd3 55.g5 Ke4 56.g6 Ra6+ 57.Kf7 Kf5 58.g7 Ra7+ [FEN "8/r4KP1/8/5k2/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 59"] And now the stalemate defense 59.Kg8!? Kg6 60.Kh8 Rxg7 stalemate is the best technique. 53.Ke5 Rg2! 54.Kf4 And only now Black's king can come: 54...Kc2 55.g4 Kd3 56.Kf5 Kd4 57.g5 Kd5 58.Kf6 Kd6 59.g6 Rf2+ 60.Kg7 Ke7 … [Read more...]
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