Black to move
Chigorin-Walbrodt, Hastings 1895
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Classic chess tactic
About Author
Black to move
Chigorin-Walbrodt, Hastings 1895
No answers yet? I’m not really sure what’s best here, but Qd6 suggests itself because of white’s potential back rank problems. For example Rxd6 Cxd6 nad the bishop on e4 will be lost.
Black is almost mated — this is an appropriate position where that funny guy needs to make the comment “black is so lost”. However, there are ways to avoid white’s mating net.
White has a formidable mate threat — the queen and bish attacking g7 and the rook threatening to check on the back rank and remove the one defender of the g7 square. And there is no way to pull another piece back to the defense of g7, so black is in trouble.
There are two ways out. One is to make an escape square for the king and then try to survive the onslaught of white’s attack. This would be to remove the f5 pawn, giving the king the e6 square to run to:
1 …Rxf5?!
2 Rd8+ Kf7
3 Qxg7+ Ke6
And black escapes mate. This might work, but black’s pieces are scattered and his king is still vulnerable. Also, white may just play 2 BxR and get a very good game and stay ahead in material. But either way, the defense seems to work and get black out of what looked like a completely lost position.
The other try is to block the rook invasion of the 8th rank with a piece on the d-file. Unfortunately, if either the rook or bish block at d5, white plays Bxd5+ and seems to snag a piece with check and still be winning big. And …Rd7 doesn’t work because it is unprotected.
So that means black must sacrifice the queen with …Qd6. However, because black’s doubled rooks threaten a back-rank mate, white’s bish is pinned and undefendable, so black gets both a rook and a bish for his queen, and his king is now safe. Hence, this seems to be the better of the two defenses:
1 …Qd6!
2 RxQ c7xd6
3 Kg1 (to avoid back-rank mates)
3 …RxB or 3…BxB
And either way, black is in good shape here and ends up with a full two rooks for the sacrificed queen; in fact, white’s queen will probably be no match for the two rooks, which are connected and dominating an open file; black has at least a draw and probably will win this game, having three pieces to two in the endgame.
Bd5 looks good…
The actual game ended in a draw.
see the game at:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1036404
Chessgames.com has that the game was played at Hastings 1895 and it was a King’s Gambit: Falkbeer Countergambit. Blackburne Attack (C31)
It has been long since that funny guy is absent!!!!lol
“Chessgames.com [said] that the game was played at Hastings 1895 and it was a King’s Gambit: Falkbeer Countergambit. Blackburne Attack (C31)
“The actual game ended in a draw.
see the game at: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1036404
“
How do you find that stuff out? Do you enter a position and it tells you what game it was from? Can we now just ‘Google’ chess positions? Wow. And thanks.
Following that link, the game went:
23 …Qd6!
24 Rxd6 cxd6
25 Be3 Rxe4
26 Bf2 Rxc4
and drew in another 25 moves.
Black does look much better to me though, in this variation with two rooks and a pawn for the queen.
“How do you find that stuff out? Do you enter a position and it tells you what game it was from? Can we now just ‘Google’ chess positions?”
Oh wait, the position is labeled:
“Chigorin-Walbrodt, Hastings 1895”
Duh! But it would still be cool if you could set up a position and ‘Google’ it to see if it occurred in a game that is on record.
tvtom … search on Chessbase 🙂