White to move. How should White proceed?
Source: Chess Today (You can checkout chess today by going to their website www.chesstoday.net)
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Sunday morning tactic
About Author
Rh6 wins the exchange…
1. Tgh3 g6
2. Dg5
1. Qh1 g6 (only move to prevent mate- protects h8 and attacks rook at h5)
2. Rh7 Bg7 (only move I can find)
3. R3h3 f6 (or f5)
4. Rg7+ Kg7 (or 4….Kf8 5. Rh8+ Kg7 6. Qh7#)
5. Rh7+ Kf8
6. Rh8+ Kf7
7. Qh7#
Black simply doesn’t have time to take the knight or move the king out of the corner.
Yancey Ward
What about Rf5!?
Rh6 wins the exchange…
1.Rh6 Be5 seems to leave Black in decent shape.
1. Qh1 g6 (only move to prevent mate- protects h8 and attacks rook at h5)
2. Rh7 Bg7 (only move I can find)
2…Rxd5 looks okay for Black.
What about Rf5!?
Hmmm …. Looks strong enough to win. Dvoirys’ actual sequence is clearer, though.
Anonymous commenter at 11:53
2….Rd5
3.ed5 R anywhere
4.R3h3 still loses the queen due to the threatened mate.
1.Rf5 Rd5 will win for white, but looks less clear than the line I proposed.
Yancey
How about 1. Nxf6+ Qxf6 2.Rf5 to force the queen away from the defence of g7 ?
Whoops.
Just noticed that is well answered by 2…Rxf5.
So now I’m thinking of starting 1.b4, and then – if the black rook moves away – continuing with 2. Nxf6+ Qxf6 3.Rf5 to force the queen away from the defence of g7
…but that doesn’t work at all. So I’m off to do something else now for a while… 🙂
1.Qh1 forces 1…g6, then 2.Nxf6+! Qxf6 3.e5 threatens 4.Qa8+ (nice that this square enters into things!) and the black queen. Logically Black can only cover the back rank, h8 and a8 by Qxe5 but of course the Q is en prise on this square. QED.
To the anonymous commenter at 5:20,
Yes, that looks good to me, too. Very nice!
Yancey
1. Qh1 g6 2. Nxf6+ Qxf6 3. e5 all looks nice. But 3…Rcxe5 planning 4. Qa8+ Re8. Any improvements?
Yep, I didn’t see that. Rce5 looks like a refutation of Qa8+.
I will stand by my initial proposal.
Yancey