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| Feb-12-16 | | YetAnotherAmateur: Well, at least I'm glad to know I'm in good company in finding sod all. My move was 18. Ne4, which seemed like it could at least offer the chance or ... Nxe4 19. Bxe4 and a nice shot at h7, but there was again nothing terribly interesting there. And I should point out that there's absolutely nothing about the game line that forces black at all. Even if 18 ... Bg5 19. Bxg5 Qxg5 20. Ne4, black keeps it even with ... Nxe4 21. Bxe4 Rc8 (21. Qxc7 Re8 loses). The win was because black blundered to try to win the rooks with check without seeing how vulnerable his back rank was. |
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| Feb-12-16 | | King Harvest: *checks calendar* No it is definitely not April Fool's Day.... This comment summed it up for me
<framsey> For once, giving up quickly on the puzzle when I didn't see anything promising turned out to be right!> |
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| Feb-12-16 | | luftforlife: A superb puzzle: absorbing, fecund, and profound. White's creative, incisive, and prevailing play out of a balanced and seemingly mundane position is inspired and brilliant. Black realizes too late in the game that his specious and temporary material advantage would deliquesce once he spent the requisite tempo to create luft for life, whereupon he would be left tending an untenable position. White's queen-play proves powerfully effective; Black's queen-play is wastefully aimless. In just six moves, White wields the queen fork and the looming menace of forked-check with his knight to substantial advantage; White capitalizes on even losing exchanges; White captures, neutralizes, or sidelines Black's heavy pieces; White presses the threat of mate and leverages positional advantage into inevitable material superiority; and White stands poised for promotion. White boldly seizes the initiative, stays a step ahead, and never looks back. A sound and resounding victory for Bogdan Lalic won on long-range positional appraisal, superior tactics, and timing, yielding an engaging, thought-provoking, and richly informative puzzle. Best to all. ~ lufty |
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| Feb-12-16 | | PJs Studio: I tried not to waste too much time on this puzzle because with a minute or so I realized there just COULDNT be a shot! But the positional imbalances gave me great interest. I'll bet black resigned after quickly grabbing the rook and looking at the position as Lalić was calculating all the winning lines. Oops. |
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Feb-12-16
 | | kevin86: A quiet puzzle. The key is to retreat the queen for an attack on c-file. |
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| Feb-12-16 | | Morphized: "The hardest thing to do is something that is close to nothing." - Marina Abramovic |
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| Feb-12-16 | | karik: Not a puzzle, rather a fizzle. |
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| Feb-12-16 | | BobbyLev: This is ineffable. I don't get it on at least two levels. (1) Why did Black capitulate? And (2) what is White's path to #? Can Black do nothing with his tempo? |
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| Feb-12-16 | | luftforlife: <BobbyLev>: White lured Black into capturing two rooks for one in the exchange at c1, sidelining Black's queen there outside the operative files of White's back-rank-mate-attack and disabling it from protecting Black's knight at d6. After 24. Kh2, if 24. . . . Re4, then 25. Be4, and Black is left with no choice but to provide luft (lest he suffer back-rank-mate from 26. Qd8+ Ne8 27. Qe8# -- or from 25. . . . Nd4 26. Qe8#; Black's queen does no good at c8 without Black's rook at e8), and this results in 26. Qd6, whereby Black loses his knight and suffers a material disadvantage. Provision of luft earlier, while White retains his knight at e4 (and in view of White's light-squared bishop at g2) is problematic not only because of the potential loss of Black's knight to White's queen at d6, but because, e.g., 24. . . . g6 results in forked check with 25. Nf6+, leading to 25. . . . Kg7 26. Ne8 Ne8 27. Qe8, whereupon Black is similarly disadvantaged. Luft via h5 seems best, but soon White would mount a combined attack against h7 with his queen and lsb, which might well prove fatal. White's king is safe at h2 from Black's unsupported queen, which undoubtedly would be required for defense against White's incipient attack. Given White's eventual material and positional advantage stemming from Black's need for luft for life, the scales tip decidedly in White's favor. |
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| Feb-12-16 | | StevieB: Not digging it. |
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| Feb-12-16 | | RandomVisitor: After 17...Re8
The only thing "difficult" about today's puzzle is not laughing at the "solution". 
click for larger viewKomodo-9.3-64bit:
<+0.00/43 18.Ne4> Bf5 19.Bf4 Bxe4 20.Bxe4 Bg5 21.Bxg5 Qxg5 22.Bf3 Re7 23.Qc3 Qf5 24.Bg4 Qg6 25.Bf3 h5 26.h4 Rbe8 27.Kg2 Qf5 28.Rd2 g6 29.Rdc2 Rd7 30.a4 Ree7 31.Qd4 Ne8 32.Qb4 Nd6 33.Qc3 Ne4 34.Qb4 Nd6 |
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| Feb-12-16 | | dark.horse: I had trouble with target acquisition with this one. |
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Feb-12-16
 | | patzer2: <dark.horse: I had trouble with target acquisition with this one.> For me it was more like more like a weapon malfunction at the local firing range: Failure to Load! |
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| Feb-12-16 | | mikrohaus: It's a positional puzzle.
I think White always wins a pawn w/ Qc2, but I'll play it out to the bitter end w/ Black. Unpleasantness is our lot in life if we play games like chess, bridge, poker, pool, backgammon, or any other game we might play against good contestants when we are also good. They get the advantage sometimes. That's why I'll give hope to the defender after Qc2; but, one must play hard. Black didn't. |
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| Feb-12-16 | | Cheapo by the Dozen: Like others, I gave up quickly and am glad of it. |
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| Feb-12-16 | | The17thPawn: Yes the POTD was pyrite but the GOTD was an absolute gem. Maybe CG was striving for equanimity in today's offerings? In the puzzle it was lacking but the game had it in spades. |
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| Feb-12-16 | | frogbert: After a quick look, I decided that I would've tried Ne4 like Komodo, but I saw nothing forcing in any line - and hey, that simply means that I solved the "puzzle". ;) There's nothing forced after the game's Qc2 either, so I was simply left puzzled ... Yeah, it was difficult to figure out how the game actually continued (for anyone not knowing the game), but that doesn't a puzzle make. |
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| Feb-12-16 | | Ayaend: 18 Qc2?! For a friday puzzle just seems incredible ! And same to a Sunday puzzle |
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Feb-12-16
 | | WannaBe: 18. Qxg8
Y'all got a problem with dat?? =) |
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| Feb-12-16 | | dufferps: After messing with it quite a bit, I think white does have a win, but there is too much chess to play from here, for black to resign after 23. ... Qc1+ The play should continue 24.Kh2 Qc8, 25.Qxc8 Nxc8. Now it's that d-pawn (with a very well positioned bishop)that gives white a slight edge. but it looks like a long hard battle ahead; no quick forced win. I'm thinking 26.d6, but I don't know if that is really white's best move at that point, and I don't have any idea how black should respond. |
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| Feb-12-16 | | Olsonist: Bf5 does ruin things. |
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| Feb-12-16 | | dufferps: Whoops - I just goofed.
24.Kh2 Qc8, White would respond with Qxd6. It does, indeed, look bleak for black. |
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Feb-12-16
 | | Check It Out: I went with 18.Qxh7# |
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| Feb-13-16 | | RandomVisitor: After 18.Qc2
click for larger viewKomodo-9.3-64bit:
<+0.00/44 18...Bf5 19.Qb3 h6> 20.Re1 Bg5 21.Bxg5 hxg5 22.Rxe8+ Qxe8 23.Na4 b6 24.Bf1 Ne4 25.Rxc7 Nd2 26.Qe3 Nxf1 27.Qxe8+ Rxe8 28.Kxf1 Bxh3+ 29.Kg1 b5 30.Nb6 Re1+ 31.Kh2 Bf5 32.d6 Be4 33.Rc8+ Kh7 34.g4 Rh1+ 35.Kg3 Rg1+ 36.Kh2 Rd1 37.d7 Rh1+ 38.Kg3 Rg1+ 39.Kh2 Rh1+ |
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| Feb-13-16 | | luftforlife: Both this game (yielding the POTD) and D Khismatullin vs Eljanov, 2015 (the GOTD) feature White's move (implied here, actual there) Kh2 in response to a back-rank-check by Black's queen. In this game, the move (expected and pedestrian, yet sound and enduringly protective) would have followed but for Black's resignation, and White likely would have gone on to win; in the other game, of course, the move (less predictable and, at first, merely a latent and not yet a patent transition from defense to offense) proved prescient, pivotal, and salvational for White, for indeed it was the beginning of the end for Black. That the move here would have been simply a safe response to check and not the first tug on a compelling mating net would have rendered it less dramatic in this game than it was in the other; but the lack of a glorious endgame in this win for White, such as Khismatullin ingeniously crafted in his, detracts in no wise from Lalic's bold and beautiful winning tactical onslaught wrought early in his midgame. |
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Kibitzing
sac: 23.Rxc1