New Year's Eve Puzzles

As we close the end of the year (okay it's not New Year's Eve yet - I know, it's time to stretch our brain muscles! (Answers can be found by highlighting between the brackets)

Puzzle #1: White to move. Evaluate 1. Bg8+ - Do you see a mating attack?

[Yes. 1. Bg8+ Kh8 (if ...Kh6, 2. Qf7 with mate on h7) 2. Qf7 Bg7 (forced) 3. Nxe5! and Black cannot avoid mate]

Puzzle #2: Black to Move. Endgame technique time! What is Black's best move here?[The adage "do not hurry" comes to mind here. 1. ...g4! Now White's pawns are completely paralyzed. Any pawn move and the g-pawn captures and queens easily]

Happy Holidays!!

It's time to take a break from the endless seams of analysis and enjoy the holidays!!

Wishing One And All Seasons' Greetings And A Happy New Year!

Tactics Exercise

This puzzle is a tough one. It is - if you don't see the idea or continuing line. But once you see it, you'll understand it.

This just occurred less than 10 min ago in a blitz game I played online.

I am Black. White is in absolute dire straits but Black must play carefully.

White had his King run up the board to h4 to escape the pin of his Knight on f3.

I did not see the following line unfortunately and missed the opportunity to end this in the most efficient manner.

Black to play and mate (Hint: in less than 5).

Answer can be found by highlighting the brackets
[1... Ng6+

2. Kh5 Qg4 and White cannot stop Nf4# or Qh4#

2. Kh3 Bd6! and White cannot stop Qh2# or Qg3#]

The Lone Path To Victory

This is it. Your moment of glory. As your eyes are transfixed on the board before you, your mind is on overload. It's been busy calculating variation after variation. But you know the truth.

Only one road leads to victory.

Every other road leads to a worse position and potential disaster. If you could load up Fritz right now, Fritz will spew out things like this:



Only 1 variation leads to your survival and increase your chances of pressing home your advantage.

And herein lies the key to better chess improvement.

The ability to calculate accurately and more crucially, the ability to spot the correct continuation.

This is why some players tend to resort to safer lines. Because they know that a wrong move would not decrease their advantage. Wasted tempi would not be immediately punished.

However, if you truly want to test your mettle, do not be afraid to open the position up and resort to complications if you know you are tactically better than your opponent. For any player below 2000, keep throwing your opponents more and more complex positions to solve. Because no one can take this sort of punishment move after move without making a mistake (this naturally applies both ways).

Of course this also means that you also are more likely to be standing at a razor's edge and you need to know your stuff inside out. In other words, you need to understand chess better than your opponents.

And remember, close positions will never stay close forever. So learn to play open and semi-open positions and work on your tactical ability.

Grandmasters are experts at this. They know how to seek out the best move even if it's the only single move to win. And if you give them time, they will find it 9 times out of 10.

Australian Youth

In the World Youth Championships concluded recently, Bobby Cheng came in first in the U12 category.

My best of congratulations to him and his family!

There was a sudden and marked improvement in his results over the course of the year. This was the time where he was reported to have become very serious in chess and wanting to attain the Grandmaster title. It has now evidently paid rewards and I wish him the very best in his quest.

Anton Smirnov came in 4th because of tie breaks although he finished level on points with the runners up in the U8 category. Well done and congratulations to him and his dad, Vladimir.

And a well done and thank you to the rest of the Aussie team for a tremendous effort in Turkey.

Special thanks go to Alana Chibnall for providing constant updates on the Australian team's progress in Turkey (in spite of having to prepare for her competition).