White to move. How should white proceed?
Robson vs Rao Prasanna, Heraklio, 2004
Daily Chess Improvement: Robson Chess Tactic!
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White to move. How should white proceed?
Robson vs Rao Prasanna, Heraklio, 2004
It’s mate in 4! This was an exciting game by Ray Robson, rated at 2680. It was about the 13th move and black got attack happy, attacking the white queen with his knight. It was a bad move and Robson easily defended his queen while peeling open blacks king side defenders.
Oh. by the way, here’s a great sight for practicing your tactics.
http://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics.html
This is a review which is still green in my mind.
So I found this puzzle at http://www.thechesswebsite.com/puzzle29/ and it calls for white to mate in 5.
r2q2kr/p1p2p1p/1p3p1B/2b1n3/2ppN1b1/2P2N2/PP3PPP/R2QR1K1 w – – 0 1
Given that the first move in resolving this enigma is 1.Nxe5, if white were to play the blunder by 2…Bxd1 then it is mate in 5. But the web sight has me playing against an unknown engine that makes the correct move 2…f5 which thwarts any checkmate in five moves. I found a way to make the engine blunder by playing 2. Re3 and it took the bait by 2…Bxe1 thus, making it mate in 6. I located the game via http://www.chesslab.com/PositionSearch.html and http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1224693 shows that black actually played …Bxd1 2. Nd7 Be7 3. Nexf6+ Bxf6 4. Re8+ Qxe8 5. Nxf6#. It’s puzzles like this that drives me insane because had the engine played the right moves then it’s mate in 10 and mate in 5 seems impossible. If you can find mate in 5 after 1 Nxe5, f5… please let me In on it….
1. Rh8+ Bxh8
2. Rxh8+ Bg8
3. Qxg8#
Or
1. Rh8+ Bg8
2. Rxg8+ Kxg8
3. e6 any
4. Qf7#
@John
4q1kr/p6p/1prQPppB/4n3/4P3/2P5/PP2B2P/R5K1 w _ _ 0 1
I think white should sacrifice Q for N and open f file
1.Qxe5 fxe5
2.Rf1 Rc7 black can not afford to take e6 pawn because of pin by B
3.a4 Qd8
4.Bd1 Re7
5.Bb3 Qe8
6.Bd5 a6
7.b4 b5
8.axb5 axb5
9.c4 bxc4
10.Bxc4 Qb8
11.Kg2 Qa8
12.Bd5 Qd8
13.b5
Black’s position is paralysed and restricted to passive movements. the advance of b pawn will divert Q/R and allow Rf8# or e6 discovered check mate.
Congratulations! You are absolutely correct in your analysis. The pawn is poisoned for a checkmate and black is paralyzed in avoiding the mate. I can only award you with the actual game. at
http://chesstempo.com/gamedb/game/1593118
Job well done
@John
4q1kr/p6p/1prQPppB/4n3/4P3/2P5/PP2B2P/R5K1 w _ _ 0 1
while attempting (?) to solve the above problem I had thought of black’s defence of placing Q at e7 and R at c8 (with white B at b3).Then white could take positive action by Rf7 Qe8(… Qd8;e7); Rg7+ Kf8 ;e7+ Qxe7;Rg8#
I had also thought of the position with black Q and white R gone with black R at f7 being pinned by white B.Black is in complete bind and no stalemate because of black g pawn, white advancing Q side P and queening it.All hazy. is it strategy or tactic?
I think the strategizing comes from the opening and the tactics become the product of that strategy. When we see a clear definition of the end result then it’s all tactics. From the position of 4q1kr/p6p/1prQPppB/4n3/4P3/2P5/PP2B2P/R5K1 w – – 0 1, Qxe5 was100% tactical because Nikolay Gusev saw that after … fxe5, Rf1 threatens mate.
What’s most interesting about this position is none of the chess engines get the right move. I have several engines at my disposal, giving them all four CPU processing power, and the best answer I get from Komodo 9.02 and Stockfish 6 64 is Qa3? Not saying anything bad about these engines, I have full respect because I play against them all the time and lose every single game.
John,
What do the engines say after you put in 1.Qe5 fe5 2.Rf1?
Interesting point Vance. The Engines have the score tied at an even zero until after Qxe5. Suddenly the engines wake up and gives white an immediate +6 or so evaluation that decreases to 1.56 (or so) during the engines analysis, giving the correct suggested move of …fxe5, Rf1. It’s also interesting to note that the score drops back down to zero after Rf1 and gives black’s best move to be Rc8, which was played during the game. After Rc8 the engines give all the right moves against blacks play in avoiding the mating threat. On the 26th move black played …Rc4 when the engine was suggesting b5 and now white will win the rook via the pin 27. Bb3. I think the move that really cost black the game was 29…a5? White answers with bxc4 with the score advancing to 3.67 in favor of white. Black would have been a little better to have played 29…cxb3 in order to advance to pawn into a queen, making Qxe6 a possibility…
John,
Wonderful! the game is as old as 1951,but not older than I.
In my analysis (?) I used 3.a4 so as not to allow R insertion at c4 as I thought B as an important piece in paralyzing the position. It is true, with R gone a defender also vanished. It is difficult to imagine it was Averbakh at the receiving end. I had also considered 1.Qa3 among several options.
I thought you would like the game. 3. a4 can give black some counter play like …a6, …Qd8 or …b5. Black cannot afford white to gain a passed pawn and as we saw demonstrated by the game that’s what happened. a4 sort of challenges the task of getting a passed pawn which is the key to winning in this position. Maybe that’s the reason why the engines don’t see Qxe5 to begin with….
@John,
i think In the actual game black’s mistake was ….. g5 ,opening another front for white viz. Rg5#. Without that white’s doubled Ps were crippled and could not advance as black Q could capture them and still keep guarding f8. I may be wrong but I feel …. Rc4 was a good move exchanging the powerful B.
I stand corrected, thank you for pointing out Rc4 as removing the powerful Bishop. What’s interesting is I allowed Stockfish to play this position out against itself and it ended as a draw by perpetual check by black. This brought me back to the original game in a closer analysis and it’s beginning to seem as though white won because of human error. I’m also investigating these positions where people are claiming that the engine misses these winning moves and I’m discovering that most, if not all, of these are based upon human error. I’m allowing the engine to speak for itself by playing these positions out against itself and I’m getting a whole different perspective. I’m discovering that the engines are not calculating human error but solid moves by the component. For example: Witcha of Chess.com states that in the position
rn2kbnr/pp2ppp1/2p5/3pP1Bp/3P3P/3Q4/PqP2PP1/RN2K1NR w KQkq – 0 1
that the chess engines give an erroneous move in stating 8. Qb3 and thought that 8.e6 was an overpowering win for white. He based this hypothesis on the fact that black made an erroneous move 8…Na6; whereas, 8. e6 can be refuted by …f6! and black can have a decent game. You can see this game at http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/positions-engines-get-wrong–please-contribute.
If your interested in corresponding with me via email, my email address is john_t_vian@hotmail.com
Even without …. g5 black loses in contrast to my previous note.There is another theme.When black Q moves away from e7 on the diagonal a3-f8 for capturing passed P white R goes to f7 threatening Rg7+ and next discovered check to capture Q.It is not possible when Q is at e7 because of … Qxf7
1.Qxe5 fxe5 2.Rf1 Rc8 3.Bd1 Rc4 4.Bb3 b5 5.Bxc4 bxc4 6.b3 a5 7.bxc4 Qe7 8.Kg2 a4 9.c5 Qxc5 10.Rf7 Qa3 Q goes under the cover of “a” pawn. Else 11.Qd6 as in main line later11.Kg3 g5 12.Kg4 Qd6 13.Rg7+ Kf8 14.Rd7+ Ke8 15.Rxd6
What do you think about 6…cxb3 7.axb3 Qd8? 8. Rf7 a5? it looks like a draw from there because if White tries to capture the queen, he will lose the rook and then black will be a rook up… if white tries to advance the b and c pawns then black has a perpetual check…
John,
Please refer to my posting at 12:15 p.m. July 17.It appeared there because of my human error of replying to my own comment. I was talking about pawn cover at a3 for black Q.Unfortunately there was only one and it worked like zwugzwang. In your line the difference is the absence of white P at c3 (which looked very innocent)and black P at a5 instead of a4.This gives b5 as an additional station for black Q because Q can be given up for R for letting cat out of the bag( I mean getting black K out of jail). Now my line does not work and it is a draw,if white refrains from giving check at g7. So finally the culprit is 6…. a5.