A very nice move 34. Bh6+.

If the knight isn't taken, the king can be pulled into the open with ...Qh6+ Kf6 Qg7+ Kh5 h4+. Surely there is a mate from there. So, I'm assuming 36...gxf5, and then 37. Qg7+ Kh5 when 38. g4+ fg 39. fg+ Kh4 40. Qh6+.

I'd say such strategy is too far from real life. For ex. Monday puzzle can produce Pavlov's reflex in your brain-sacr. the Q (orR). But, if playing the OTB game,you meet the same position,let's say on Saturday,not everybody will find such sacr. I will give you one example. A few days ago we had puzzle with white to play on diagram. [bad FEN: r2qr1k1/ppp2pbp/5np1/1b2N3/4P3/8/PP1N1PPP/R1BQ1R1K1]
After only two! "forced" moves everybody (even who play without using a chess set) could see the position on the next diagram, where black to play.

click for larger view

37...Kf4 38. Kf2 fe (or 38...Bh4+ 39. g3+ 40. Bg3+ hxg3#) 39. Qg4#

37...Kh4 38. Qh6#

37...Kh5 38. g4+ fg 39. fg+ Kh4 40. Qh6+ Kxg4 41. Kg2! and there is no defense to h3#.

Finally, if the knight is not taken, the fastest mate against most Black moves is 38. Qh6+ Kf6 39. Qh4+ g5 40. Qh6#

I have just returned from a holiday in France. And one thing that struck me was the different attitude that the French and the British have towards bread.

Stick with it: there's some chess coming in a minute, I promise!

Every morning you can see French people walking to the local bakers to buy fresh bad - typically a baguette long enough to give a donkey an inadequacy complex. And they may well do the same thing again in the evening, to fetch bread for their supper. It doesn't matter if they already have bread - after a few hours they refuse to eat it and insist on buying fresh.

Few Brits would do this. Why spend so much time on something which is apparently so mundane? Instead we buy our bread from the supermarket and keep it for days and days. And that means that typical British bread is (a) bland and (b) pumped full of preservatives.

So why do the French buy fresh bread every day, sometimes even twice a day? How come that it is the only shopping for non-electrical items that men seem able to do?

Simply this - because it tastes better. If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well. The Mem sometimes takes an absolute age to get ready to go out of an evening, but I have to admit that the results are worth it.

Of course, there are only 24 hours in the day, whether you are English, French, male, female, grandmaster or patzer. How can we have enough time for the good stuff? As <al wazir> argues, we only have around 2-3 minutes per move.

And again the answer is <relatively> simple - we save time on the less important stuff. Time management is as much about the things that you don't do, or don't do to the same level of effort.

So we don't apportion exactly 3 minutes to every move. We can gain time in the opening, when we are playing from memory. John Nunn's advice of DAUT (Don't Analyse Unnecessary Tactics) also helps here. Flick through the moves of this game and you will see that most of the positions didn't really require a long think.

The trick is to spot when a position needs an RLT - a really long think. We would need an RLT if we about to sacrifice a piece or change the pawn structure or exchange down into an endgame.

CG.com is very realistic in that the positions are taken from real life. But it doesn't help us to train ourselves to manage time. Every puzzle is already flagged up as needing an RLT. The graduated difficulty level also gives us an unfair advantage that we don't get OTB.

One way to get around this is to look for the clues in the position which demand RLT. And in today's puzzle we have the exposed black king, his defenders having deserted to the sunny side of the battlefield. Can you smell that mate is in the air? And surely that is worth a little more time than just the average three minutes per move?

As to the puzzle itself, I largely spotted it through pattern recognition and memory. The position just demands a bishop sac on h6 and the queen parking herself on g7 to push the king towards the white pawns and minor pieces. The Qg7 trick is fairly standard in king hunts to prevent the king from finding an escape route.

I first looked at this position about an hour ago. I tried all sorts of stuff, but I wasn't getting anywhere. Rather than make a rash decision (like I have several times this week), I decided to allow the position to rattle around in my head while I occupied myself with something else (in this case, reading).

I finally came back to the position now, and have finally hit upon an idea. When I first looked at the position, I considered moves like 34 Bh6+, 34 Nh5+, 34 Nf5+, as well as less forcing moves like 34 Rxb6 and 34 Nb5, but couldn't get anything to work for me.

The problem seems to be that, even though the black king is almost devoid of pieces that can assist in protection, white's rook and knight on c3 are also out of the picture. We need a move that both strips away what remains of the black king's protection, but also allows inroads of white's remaining pieces. White gets the ball rolling with...

34 Bh6+ Kxh6

This was the first move I looked at, but originally I was very concerned that black could decline the proffered bishop with 34...Kf6. That's when I finally saw how white's other pieces (the rook and the knight on c3) would come into play. White plays 35 f4 and now the threat is 35 fxe5+ dxe5 36 Rf1#. Should black take the f-pawn with 35...exf4 then 36 e5+ dxe5 37 Nce4# is checkmate.

35 Qf8+ Kg5 36 Qg7

This is the hard to find move, but white must keep the black king from making his escape via f6. So, what's black to do? White now threatens 37 h4+ Kxh4 (on 37...Kf4 38 Qh6+ g5 39 Qxg5# is mate) 38 Qh6+ Kxg3 39 Qh2#.

I think this must be about it. Time to check.

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(36. Nf5 as mentioned by some is mate in 6 while 36. Qg7 is mate in 5)

Level material. White has a promising tactical shot: 34 Bh6+ Kxh6 (if 34...Kf6 35 Qh8+ Ke7 36 Qf8+ Kd7 37 Qxf7 wins a Pawn without risk) First try: 35 Qf8+ Kg5 36 Qg7 threatening 37 h4+ Kxh4 38 Qh6+ Kxg3 39 Ne2#. But 36...h5 and White may not be able to break through. Second try: 35 Nf5+ gxf5 (looks forced: if 35...Kg4 36 h4+ Kf5 37 Ne2#; if 35...Kh4 36 g4+ Kg4 37 Kf2 threatening 38 Ne2#) 36 Qf8+ Kh4 37 Qg7 and Black cannot get defenders over in time. Time to check:
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I got part of it. Crafty link below to just before the puzzle to check the variations:

click for larger view

Panos vs Cisneros 1991, 33? http://www.chessvideos.tv/endgame-t...

My first try does win, my second doesn't (36 Qf8+ Kg6 defends). Interestingly the game line let Black off the hook. 34.Bh6+ Kxh6 35.Qf8+ Kg5 36.Qg7 h5 37.h4+? was a blunder: Kxh4 38.Nf5+ gxf5?? (Kg5!) 39.g3+ 1-0. Correct was 37 Nf5 before h4+: try both variations on Crafty to see why.