1r4qk/Q1R4p/8/3pP3/2p2p2/p6P/1nb3P1/1R5K w – – 0 1
White to move. Can White hold this position? How should White proceed?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Saturday morning chess tactic
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this position is not easy, first move hard to find, and second is even harder (the only moves) – i checked with engine
Prophet
It’s maybe not a clear mate, but it seems to me that after
1 e6 Qf8
2 Qd4+ Kg8
3 e7 Qe8
4 Qxd5+
and the rook coming to f1, that white has a strong attack. The king will have to come forward, because after 4…Kg8 the threat of Rd7 followed by Rd8 looks very unpleasant.
Rybka solves this in about a second (I won’t give the solution).
This is a definite win for white.
‘Prophet’ said…
“this position is not easy, first move hard to find, and second is even harder (the only moves) – i checked with engine”
It’s not too hard to find, without engine. White is doubled on the seventh rank, but black has both queen and bishop defending the key h7 square; black’s queen is pinned on the back rank defending the rook; white’s rook on b1 looks useless; black’s king is trapped in the corner and could be mated on the long diagonal, which white’s queen can reach, except the e-pawn is blocking it.
The first move seems to have to be either Qd4 or e6, the two moves needed to mate the trapped king in the corner. Yet Qd4 can be answered with Qe6, stuffing the pawn, now that the queen isn’t tied down to defending the rook. That means 1 e6 has to be the best try.
1 e6 Qf8 — virtually forced, as the king is trapped in the corner, and the rook covers the g7 and g8 squares, and none of black’s pieces can come over to block the diagonal; so room for the king on g8 is the only choice, and if the queen leaves the back rank the rook on b8 is lost, yet it has to cover g7 because of the threat Qd4+ and Qg7++.
Now we have a new problem, as the black queen is overtaxed, and deflecting it would lead to instant mate. I see 3 candidate moves here.
2 e7 deflects the queen, except that now the seventh rank — and the mate threat — is cut off. But it might work:
2 e7 Qe8
3 Qd4+ Kg8
4 Qxd5+ Kg7
5 Qe5+ Kg6 and there are lots of possibilities, and white has got out of the mess, with at least perpetual checks.
2 Rf7 also deflects the queen and looks better because if the queen moves, then Qd4+ and Qg7++, so the queen is lost.
2 (Rf7) BxR
3 RxQ RxR
4 Qxa3 Rb8 and black has a rook, bish, knight, and pawn for the queen — not too great for white, and at best there might be perpetual checks here as well.
2 Rf1 activating the useless piece and threatening Rxf4, deflecting the overtaxed queen on f8, as well as simply threatening the above Rf7 without allowing black to get two rooks for the queen.
2 (Rf1) Kg8
3 Rxf4 QxR
4 QxR+ Qf8
5 Rc8 pinning and winning the queen.
2 (Rf1) Nd3
3 Rf7 and the queen can’t move because of the Qd4+ again, so
3 … Kg8
4 RxQ RxQ
5 Qxa3 and now black has only bish, knight, and pawn for the queen, a whole rook’s difference from the 2 Rf7 variation.
So 2 Rf1 looks like the best of the three candidate moves, and white ends up ahead, with a queen against a couple of minor pieces.
I sure hope after all of this, I set up the correct position to study on my chessboard this time. D’oh!
I didn’t see mayadi’s comment:
“It’s maybe not a clear mate, but it seems to me that after
1 e6 Qf8
2 Qd4+ Kg8
3 e7 Qe8
4 Qxd5+
and the rook coming to f1, that white has a strong attack. The king will have to come forward, because after 4…Kg8 the threat of Rd7 followed by Rd8 looks very unpleasant.”
This is a transposition of my first try — 2 e7 — as Qd4+ comes next, but I couldn’t find more than a perpetual, but maybe it wins. 2 Rf1 immediately looks a little better (2 Rf7 was the worst of the three, giving up both rooks for the queen) but I’m just not sure. Maybe someone else can see farther, or else a poster can convey his or her mystical communion with the All-Seeing Great God Rybka.
From my communion with Rybka (well, not very mystical, my patience wore off after 5 min, on the 18 ply):
18 +5.57 12.2M 5:02.72 e6 Qf8 Rf1 Kg8 Rf7 Bg6 R1xf4 a2 Rxf8+ Rxf8 Rxf8+ Kxf8 Qa3+ Ke8
White is ahead 5.57 (about a rook and a pawn)
On ply 16 (earlier) she sees the variant with Nd3:
16 +5.20 3.4M 1:20.14 e6 Qf8 Rf1 Kg8 Rf7 Nd3 Rxf8+ Rxf8 Qxa3