White to move. Is White’s position hopeless? How should White continue?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
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White to move. Is White’s position hopeless? How should White continue?
Qh4! Qe6 Qxh6!
Qh4! Qf1 Qxh6!
Susan this is a very interesting study.Thanks for posting it. I think I have found the solutions:
1.Qh5!! Bg5
[(a) 1…Rb7 2.Qxf7 Bg5 3.Rxg5 Rxf7 4.Rg8#;
(b) 1…Be7 2.Qxf7 Ng5 3.Qh7+ Nxh7 4.Rg8#;
c) 1…Rdb6 2.Qxf7 b3 (2…Bxd4 3.Qxh7#; 2…Ng5 3.Qf8#) 3.Qxh7#;
(d) 1…Bh4 2.Qxf7 Bxg3+ 3.Rxg3 Rg6 4.Rxg6 b3 (4…a5 5.Rg8# (5.Qg7#; 5.Qg8#) ) 5.Rg8#;
(e) 1…Qxh5?? 2.Rg8#]
2.Qxf7 Rh6
[2…Rdb6 3.Qxh7#; 2…Rg6 3.Rxg5 Nxg5 4.Rxg5 Rbb6 5.Rh5+ Rh6 6.Qf8#]
3.Rxg5 Rxh3+
4.Kg2
[4.Kxh3 Nxg5+ 5.Rxg5 b3 6.Rg8# (6.Qg7#) ]
4…Rh2+
5.Kxh2
[5.Kf1 Rf2+
a) 5…Nxg5 6.Qf8#;
b) 5…Rxc2 6.Qg7# (6.Rg8#; 6.Qg8#) ; 6.Kxf2 Nxg5 7.Qf8#]
5…Nxg5
[5…b3 6.Qg7#; 5…Nf6 6.Qg7# (6.Qxf6#) ]
6.Qf8#
Qh5! sorry
1.Qh5 Qe6
If 1…Qf8 2.Qxh6 Rd7 (2…Qf7 3.Rg7 Qxg7 4.Rxg7 Bxg7 5.Qxh7#) 3.Qxf8+ Nxf8 4.Rg8#
2.Qxh6 Rd7
If 2…Rb7 3.Rg7 Rxg7 4.Rxg7 Qxh3+ 5.Kxh3 Bxg7 6.Qxh7#
3.Rg7 Rxg7
4.Rxg7 Qxh3+
5.Kxh3 Bxg7
6.Qxh7#
Having managed to find this mate i felt a little proud, and i put my lines into Fritz! the silicon monster taught me modesty… his line goes as follows
1.Qh5 Qe6
2.Qg6! Ng5
3.Rxg5 Rb7
4.Qxh6+ Rh7
5.Qxh7#
Since others already found the solution (even I did, which is a big deal (:-)), let me make a sidenote.
Of course, I too plugged it into Fritz (X3D which is Deep Fritz 8), Fritz being a main engine and brought in Rybka free for “kibitz”. Here came the interesting surprize I want to share with you. Rybka indicated 320 advantage to white. I have never seen such number, which usually fades out over 20 some. I repeated the experiment and Rybka insisted showing 320. What is this? Anyone knows?
Gabor
My solution was also Qh5 and black is lost.
hmmm – i do not own rybka, so i don’t know
by the way – claiming “1.qh5!! will win” for a given position is not the way chess puzzles should be SOLVED (it would be like shouting 1.e4! and white is winning, wouldn’t it?)
indeed, qh5 is the first move in the given example, but depending on black’s answer, there are lot’s of variations (and i did not see any going for a mate in six. Thus, the puzzle was NOT solved yet to me!)
🙂
Gabor, each engine has its values. Sjeng indicates 327 for a mate. Just a number !
1.Qh5 is pretty obvious since you hit many nails on the head. a) activate the queen b) threaten the black queen who cannot take and has to obey the square g8.
Dunno if this move really wins but it’s something I would play immediatly.
Maybe the number valuation given by the program is a way of keeping the calcuation as integers or whole numbers. Most computers take a little bit more time and processing power to handle decimal numbers than integers – this was true way back in the original IBM-PC and Apple II days – is this still true today? For this reason programs who wanted speed and quick calculations would try to figure ways around problems to keep the figures as integers – which were quicker to process. In fact, I recall a whole realm of integer calculus designed to create faster calculation of physics collision models – again way back when 48 kilobytes was a lot of RAM!
1Rg8 Qg8
2Rg8 Kg8
3Qg4 Bg5
4Qe3…