Once again one my opponents played the dubious Bf5?! after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3. And once again 4.Qb3! refutes this as far as I understand.
Couple of moves later we reach this position on the picture and his bishop is threatening my queen. I was happy to find the winner. In fact I seem to remember this from some previous game where the same tactic endured. So this time around everything was at its right place.
White to move
What is the winner?
I’ve been nagged by my lousy tactics by a friend in FICS so I spent some days at chess.ermrald.net trying to improve. Here’s a position from recent blitz game against 1458 player where he had major tactical oversight with ..Qb6. I am sure the hours spent on tactics helped here to see the oversight. Actually I saw the possibility even before black move and kept summoning (shouting aloud) the possibility to play it.
White to move.
White to move
Here’s pretty neat and unorthodox mate in three for you to solve.
Black to move
Here I have penetrated white position with doom hanging over whites king. This was from chess.com 60 30 game. I saw the right idea but executed the combination the wrong way. Do you see the right order to execute the threat of mate and capturing the queen? (Stop here if you want to work it out.)
I played Qa1+ when after Kd2 Bb4+?? is serious mistake as Rxa1 Bxc3+ Kxc3 I essentially sacrifice a bishop for nothing. So instead of BB4+ I just have to retreat the queen.
Before we get back to the key moments in my recent slow time control games I wanted to let you know in the case you missed excellent coverage of Biel tournament on excellent Chessbases youtube channel. Here example of Alexei Shirov and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave going at their game with lot of insights.
White to move
This is from very nice 60 30 game against Amneziya on Chess.com. It was a roller coaster where I was already winning but went wrong but maintained the advantage. What is the clean finish for white?
My latest involves going through Alekhines games. There is this tendency now in my games to draw for blood when there isn’t none as was the case here against Dragonfish when I played Ng5 after which Bxf4 must be close to equal. After h6? though it all comes ugly for black sooner than he expected I believe.
White to move
What is whites best?
(Stop here if you don’t want to know the answer.)
Now if fx, Qx+, Be7 trying to preserve the bishop, what is the quickest?
