|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 3 OF 4 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
| Jan-27-09 | | Kasputin: <Patriot ... I know that some of you give yourselves x amount of time to solve these per day. How much time do you think is reasonable for Tuesday problems? What about other days of the week?> Perhaps a more appropriate question is: how much time do you think you need and does it even make sense to put a clock on it? The amount of time that is needed is relative of course. But whatever strength a player may be, I don't think it makes sense to either place an unrealistic short time limit on oneself or to take forever to try and solve a puzzle. There is a point after which one is probably wasting valuable time trying to solve a puzzle that is beyond their current grasp. But - and I am only speaking for myself - if I feel I am making headway, seeing more and more into a position, then I will generally keep going. Since <Patriot> you gave yourself 45 seconds, why would you continue to try and solve it after that time? I mean what is the point of a time limit if you are going to go past it? -- unless you are just experimenting with different time limits - and there isn't anything wrong with doing that. Perhaps you went past the 45 seconds because you wanted to solve the bleeping thing! And it appears that you did! I say congratulations! Others will throw out a whole bunch of different time-frames in terms of what they do. But what will this really tell you? I say pick your own time frame based on whatever you think is reasonable for yourself. Better accuracy and faster speed comes with practice and play. |
|
| Jan-27-09 | | TheTamale: I saw this in a heartbeat. It's funny how I can solve a puzzle that represents a move I would never EVER find in an actual game. |
|
| Jan-27-09 | | YouRang: Crumb. I completely missed the very clever 23...Rd1!!, and spent a bunch of time chasing a more complicated idea, although, I think my idea just *might* hold water. I went with 20...Nxb4 21.Rxa5 Nc2+ 22.Ke2, which is all pretty well forced. Here, I saw a mate threat with 22...g4! (blocking f3 and threatening ...Bc4#). What can white do about it? He can try to make an escape square at f2 via 23.f3, but then 23...Bc4+ 24.Kf2 Rd2+ 25.Kg1 Bxf1 26.Kxf1 Rd1+ winning the exchange. Or, he might try guarding c4 via 23.Ra4, but I still win the exchange with 23...b5, and white must still lost the exchange, e.g. 24.Rf4 Bc4+ 25.Rxc4 cxb4. He could also guard c4 with 23.Rc5, but then 23...b6! (pestering the rook and clearing b7) 24.Rc7 Rac8! (note that 25.Rxc8 is met by 25...Bxc8, and the mate threat ...Ba6# remains, thanks to the vacated b7 square). Anyway, this all looked pretty decent to me. But I must admit that I got to thinking that this was pretty tough for a Tuesday, and I asked myself, "could I be missing something easier?" Naaaah... :-p |
|
| Jan-27-09 | | TheChessGuy: When playing a combination, moves that are forcing are really good. After 20...Rd1+! White has only three options, and they're all bad. Forcing moves make the resulting variations much easier to calculate, leading to a better attack. Very humorous way to end the game by Portisch! |
|
| Jan-27-09 | | PinnedPiece: <Better accuracy and faster speed comes with practice and play.> I measure how long it takes so that I can see if there is: 1.) improvement (seeing the board) over time
2.) variations in difficulty in the CG.com puzzles
3.) how other "par" kibitzers are doing in relation to me
4.) pretending I'm up against a clock!
Well, by Wednesday all that motivation is gone, and I'm just happy to get the first couple moves correct, if possible, in the time I have to kill.... |
|
| Jan-27-09 | | SamAtoms1980: Even over the board, as Black I would suspect that there is a shot here because of the fragile way White's position is being held together. Then one sees that after 20 ... Rd1+ 21 Kxd1 Nxc3+, Black takes the Queen. Surprised that this got past so many of the regulars here. It is very rare that I will find the key move to a puzzle when more than half of the kibitzers err. However I was quite struck by MAJ's trap-line of 20 ... Nxb4 21 Rxa5 Nc2+ 22 Ke2 Bc4+ 23 Kf3 Rd1 24 Bxc4 Rxh1 25 Rxg5+. I could very easily blow a real game in this fashion. Ouch. |
|
| Jan-27-09 | | Patriot: <Kasputin> Thanks for your response. I play rated tournaments, typically 30 minute games with a 5 sec delay and sometimes 45 minutes with a 5 sec delay, and I often play too slowly on some moves and end up losing on time. So what I'm really trying to accomplish is to establish a better awareness of how much time I'm spending on a move vs. how much time I should allow. The amount of time one should allow depends on the criticality of the position and how much time is remaining on the clock. If a position is non-critical, then one should allow less than average time per move--let's say based on a 40 move game. Since each day increases in difficulty, it seems logical to give a certain amount of time to solve it, in an effort to help me improve in both time management and analysis. So basically I'm trying to analyze more efficiently within limited time-frames and also to get in the habit of assigning how much time is reasonable for a given move. <Since <Patriot> you gave yourself 45 seconds, why would you continue to try and solve it after that time? I mean what is the point of a time limit if you are going to go past it?> Good question. It's just my way of saying "I didn't solve this efficiently, but I will continue to analyze this to practice analyzing." Of course, continuing to analyze OTB is not really practical unless there are factors that suggest a combination and how much time is remaining on the clock. The question is "WHY didn't I solve this within 45 seconds?" This tells me that had I looked at forcing moves starting with checks first, I likely would've succeeded. But I don't think 45 seconds is unreasonable for this problem (for me). |
|
| Jan-27-09 | | DarthStapler: Got it but it took a long time |
|
| Jan-27-09 | | TheaN: Tuesday 27 January
<20....?>
Material: =
Candidates: Nxc3, Nxb4 (long time), <[Rd1†]> -ML-
This position offers so much that I got lost into two variations that do not work: 20....Nxc3? 21.Qxa5  looks nice, as Qxc3 and Rxa5 are not possible, but Qxa5 wins rather easy. Also, 20....Nxb4?! 21.Rxa5 Nc2† 22.Ke2 Bc4† 23.Kf3 Ne1† is up to that point completely forcing but not gaining anything. No, Black's combination comes from one of those moves, a move later. The White has to be brought into position. <20....Rd1†!> and that works perfectly. White has three legal moves, two definitely ill-advised, and the third one getting the position we want. /A\
<21.Ke2> this clearly loses, and White would've wanted to take some material if he had seen what's coming next. <21....Nxc3† 22.Qxc3> 22.Kxc3 Qxb4  loses without a fight, being a full Queen down. <22....Qxc3 > and Kxd1 is impossible due to Qxa1... well, possible, but trading isn't very advisable. White is clearly lost and should just take the Rook. But how? /B\
<21.Rxd1 Nxb4 > the ironic part is that in the starting position, White is defending his Queen by the pin on Na2. However, as in this variation, that pin is easily broken and White loses Queen for Rook, in a position where there is no fight at all. /C\
<21.Kxd1> now this is what we want. Suddenly, taking the defender of ♕b4 is with check, and thus the pin on ♘a2 is to be neglected. <21....Nxc3† 22.Qxc3> any King move leads to an almost identical ♕/♖ position as in variation B. <22....Qxb4 > But the remaining ♕/♖+♘ won't take extremely long either: Qxa1 is threatened, as well as destructive moves like Rd8† and Bc4. I wouldn't be surprised if this position evaluates as a quick mate, and either of the above variations might be better. |
|
| Jan-27-09 | | TheaN: 2/2
Read <The White <King> has to be brought into position.> and the Kxc3 in variation A should be Kf3, obviously. Other than that, it looks like many people were fooled by Nxb4. |
|
| Jan-27-09 | | MostlyAverageJoe: <cu8sfan: <MostlyAverageJoe: My human-based control method (listening to my son's thinking aloud about the puzzle - he did solve it, BTW)> Is this the boy in your avatar? Now I feel embarrassed for not solving it. (-;> He's a bit older now - 8 years, to be exact. Hoping to get above the 1200 ELO soon. Cheers. |
|
| Jan-27-09 | | theodor: < al wazir: White should have played 18. Qxc3. > 18...Nb4 is devastating! |
|
| Jan-27-09 | | drnooo: The two moves that set the combo up are nice: if pawn takes knight queen takes pawn check, king up, bishop check, king f3 and pawn g4 check, king must take pawn, then bishop discovered check wins white queen: almost prettier than the relatively easy two move combo |
|
| Jan-27-09 | | patzer2: <UnsoundHero> Thanks for taking a deep look at 18. Qxc3? Nb5! and 19. Qb2 Nd5!  .
Your analysis looks good. Based on your examination, I conclude that 18...Nb4! is probably winning for Black. |
|
| Jan-27-09 | | mkrk17: Totally missed it. For some reason i thought that Nxc3 is winning for black. After seeing the solution and realizing that Nxc3 only loses, i feel like a jackass. Anyway, definitely not an easy puzzle. |
|
| Jan-27-09 | | TheBish: Suba vs Portisch, 1984 Black to play (20...?) "Easy" (1.5 stars)
Well, I would call yesterday's about 0.5 stars, and this one more like 2.0 - not too difficult, for sure, but closer to "Medium" just because it's a little hard to see. Candidate moves: 20...Nxb4, Qxb4, Qd5, Rd1+.
I rejected 20...Nxb4 Rxa5 21. Nc2+ Ke2, because there's no follow-up. We can dismiss 20...Qxb4 21. cxb4 because there's even less of a follow-up! 20...Qd5 is answered by 21. Qd4 or 21. Qa2. What's needed here is a tempo move, to set up either a diversion of the rook on a1 (so that Nxb4 can't be answered by Rxa5), or to set up Nxc3+, in other words, luring the White king to either d1 or e2, which would set up Nxc3+ to win White's queen. What kind of move would do that? 20...Rd1+!! does both things mentioned above. It's a decoy move, to either lure the rook - 21. Rxd1 Nxb4 22. cxb4 Qxb4+ 23. Ke2 (Kd2 Rd8) Bc4+ wins more material, since 24. Kf3 g4+! 25. Kf4 (Kxg4 Be2+) Bxf1+ and Black has a queen for a rook - or the king, since 21. Kxd1 (Ke2 is similar) Nxc3+ 22. Qxc3 Qxc3, and now White either gets mated or loses more material: 23. Rc1 (or Rb1) Rd8+ 24. Ke2 Bg4+ 25. f3 Qd2#, or 23. Ra4 Qb3+, or 23. Ra2 Rd8+ 24. Ke2 Qc4+ wins the rook. An interesting line is 20...Rd1+!! 21. Ke2 Nxc3+ 22. Qxc3 Qxc3 23. Rxd1 Bc4+ 24. Kf3 Qf6+ 25. Kg4 (Ke4 Re8+ 26. Be5 Qxe5+ is easy) Be6+ 26. Kh5 Qg6#! White's king marches up the board, hara-kiri style! Time to see the game! |
|
| Jan-27-09 | | TheBish: <newton296: It took me about 7.2 seconds to get this . Well within the acceptable time frame for a snowy Tuesday.> It took me about 20 minutes and 6.8 seconds - 6.8 seconds to solve it, and about 20 minutes to finish typing up the solution after regaining consciousness from the hailstone that came crashing through the window and hitting me in the head, knocking me out. Well within the acceptable time frame for a snowy, hailstone-filled Tuesday. |
|
| Jan-28-09 | | patzer2: I know 6. Ndb5 is a standard and frequently played opening move here. However, it seems to me that moving the Knight a second time, before completing development, is suspect and contributes to White's problems (uncastled King and under-developed pieces under attack) in this game. My preference is 6. g3 as in E Iturrizaga vs Holzke, 2009. According to the opening explorer, 6. g3, which is the most popular move among masters, was played 326 times with 36.2% wins and 17.8% losses. The game continuation 6. Ndb5, the second most popular choice here, was played 183 times with 30.1% wins and 15.3% losses. |
|
| Jan-28-09 | | just a kid: I think 20...Rd1+! wins.I saw that the Queen was attacked by the Knight,but White's rook pinned it.So I thought for a minute and realized that if 20...Rd1+ that 21.Rxd1 runs into 21...Nxb4.Then I saw Kxd1 and thought for another minute and found 21...Nxc3+! removes the Queen's defender.Time to check. |
|
| Jan-28-09 | | just a kid: Yes!I'm two for two! |
|
| Sep-17-11 | | Everett: What a $&@?! brutal use of the initiative by Portisch. |
|
| Oct-05-11 | | sevenseaman: Suba attacked too early and at the cost of development. Portisch came up with adequate defense and was then able to mount a very good attack. 20...Rd1+ is daringly imaginative in order to get his N going. |
|
| Oct-05-11 | | hellopolgar: 19. Qe4 loses instantly. |
|
Oct-05-11
 | | HeMateMe: This looks more like the US Open U1800, than a GM game. |
|
| Oct-05-11 | | goodevans: After 18 Qxc3 white's position doesn't look too dreadful, or am I missing something? |
|
 |
|
|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 3 OF 4 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
|
|
|
Kibitzing
Annotations by 