White to move. Can you find the best move in less than 10 seconds? How should White proceed?
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1.Qg2 seems to lead to ineviatable mate (2.Qg4, 2.Qf2)
Yes! Vrellum is right!
I like this kind of pattern recognition exercice.
Doing these repeatedly and it “jumps into your eyes” that Qf2 and Qg4 is mate and you just have to calculate: could my queen (which would like to jump too) concretely go there.
Have a nice day
Took me about 7 seconds to find 1.Qg2.
Paradoxically, I think it would have taken me longer to solve it, if Black had FEWER pieces on the board.
Why? Because it took only a second or so to see that Black’s pieces were well coordinated and mutually protected (aside from his King, of course). That meant the only solution is to look for a quick mate.
Seeing Black’s large array of secure pieces, I immediately knew to waste no time looking for the usual sorts of tactics that come up in Q-vs-R+minor piece positions — skewers, forks, and other kinds of double attacks. Using White’s Q to win material here would be a non-starter: impossible to begin with, and useless even if it could be done (Black’s material advantage is just too large).
Therefore, I think the puzzle would be much harder if material were more nearly equal (say, remove one of the Black rooks, or both minor pieces).
Nooo, I failed. I was checking out Qe4+ but it didn’t seem to lead to anything decisive, and then the time was up. Should have looked at Qg2… especially since black has no checks (so there is no need for white to keep checking.)
I like it a lot all this reflexions about “how do I think”.
This needs a good dose of insight. In my opinion this could be a very important training tool: By “thinking out loud” or “talking about your thought process” (I don’t know yet how to call it) you not only point your strength and weaknesses of thinking, you not only train yourself and progress but I’m sure you help others a lot.
I find it much more important to know how you find the move than just “what the good move is” (my computer can often do it).
It could be so helpful (and inspiring) to know what’s going on in the mind of a stronger player and it would be delightful to follow the thinking process of a Grandmaster…
Give some dedicated and honest attention on what is going on your mind (what are the ideas that comes to me, what’s my thinking process and so on…) and try to write it down: I’m sure everybody would benefit.
Have a nice day
frankly spoken – i failed miserably!
at a first glance i thought qe4+ will lead to a mate – but it doesn’t.
at a second glance i was petrified with horror recognizing that there is a black knight on the board – can he do any harm to me?
i started to check lines… and then, all of a sudden, i realized: black has no check after qg2!
so, finally i made it – BUT – a look at the clock (about 20 seconds had already passed) convinced me, that i did a miserable job …
:((
nonetheless – greetings!
After 1.Qg2…h5 takes care of 2.Qg4+
However, 2.Qg5+ leaves the black K in great difficulties.
If you were not in big big big time trouble you would have won anyway.
10 secs is not much because you first have to “look at the position” and only then try to find the good move.
In real play you already have +/-the position in mind…
Bob, if h5 then Qf2 mate.
Hehe I looked for like 30 seconds and then gave up. Would have thought more but was already embarrassed enough to have went so far over my 10 second allottment. You are all big geniuses
Greg Shahade
It took me 13 seconds, so I guess I am still not ready for playing blitz 😛
jean-luc said: “Give some dedicated and honest attention on what is going on your mind (what are the ideas that comes to me, what’s my thinking process and so on…) and try to write it down: I’m sure everybody would benefit.”
I think chess players of just about any strength level can benefit by following the above observation, but taking it a step further.
Beyond reflecting on the thought process that lets you see and ultimately choose certain moves, I have found it’s at least equally important to keep conscious tabs on your EMOTIONS — your overall state of mind — while playing a serious chess game.
Develop a habit of “checking yourself out” every few moves — especially during important games. Periodically ask yourself how you’re feeling about your position and about the broad context of the game you’re playing.
Are you nervous (is prize money on the line? are you facing your long-time nemesis? is your girlfriend/boyfriend/parent watching?) Are you feeling very confident about winning this game — perhaps too confident? Or, conversely, are you feeling hopeless?
Being consciously aware that you feel the game’s “in the bag”, is the best possible preventive against blundering due to overconfidence.
Conversely, being consciously aware of your despair at having a lost position, is a good first step toward casting off despair and (even if you are objectively lost on the board) redirecting your full mental and emotional energy toward looking for “swindles” that might give you a chance to trip up your opponent.
To sum up: Getting in the habit of giving “some dedicated and honest attention” (jean-luc’s phrase) to the full, emotional panoply of what’s going on in your mind, often can help raise a player’s strength even more than self-analysis of chess cognition alone.
For background, see my article in Chess Life, December 2005, “The Sense of Danger, Part II: When Emotions Attack.”
If that whets your appetite for more, then pick up GM Jonathan Rowson’s ground-breaking book, “The Seven Deadly Chess Sins.” It’s primarily about chess psychology (but also contains plenty of over-the-board instruction, of a rather advanced nature).
It took me 3 – 5 minutes to find the solution. I’m not ashamed.
es_trick
Thank you very much to Jon Jacobs.
Your very clever and instructive observations brings the reflexion a level up.
Chess is such a great game with so many different aspects.
Personnaly I loose a lot of games just because the game is “objectively” won… this create a different emotional state and I blunder… I’ve learn a lot about myself by playing chess…
I’m happy you recommend “The Seven Deadly Chess Sins”. It’s a great and useful book (I found “Chess for Zebras” (his other book) profoundly interesting too).
Could we read your article “The Sense of Danger, Part II: When Emotions Attack.” somewhere on the internet?
Have a nice day