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Crazy endgame tactic

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Phelon

See if you can solve it

AndTheLittleOneSaid

Heh, I did this on computer workout recently, so I'm proud to say I just solved it without a problem!

I didn't the first time I met it though, I needed to see someones comment about the importance of Bc5 before I understood what I needed to do.

zogondragon

I understood the objective (taking black bishop out of b8 square), but frankly I couldn't see the sequence at all. It is too hard for me....

VANET

the component of zun-zwam and pieces with the same color (bischop on this problem). the planing or strateguie is to find, elimined our opponent bischop from diagonal h2-b8. The Battled of control at the River position. In my simple Opinion.

AndyClifton

Well, "simple" isn't quite what I would've called it...

corpsporc

Too bad I already saw it (in Nimzowitsch's My System)

-waller-

This is known as a Centurini position if I remember rightly, and one of the harder ones. I'm glad I got it, although I don't think this is a unique solution! Tongue out

AndyClifton

I don't know.  From now on I'm calling it the Phelon position.

-waller-

http://blog.chess.com/likesforests/the-endgame-tactician-centurinis-rule

If anyone wanted to know more about these endings, here's a cool blog.

AndyClifton

Doesn't matter to me.  Who the heck was Centurini anyway?  At least I know who Phelon is.

Cool to see something by likesforests again though (I'd forgotten all about that guy). Smile

waffllemaster

Bah, two wrong moves... but not off the top of my head of course, this is a very well known position I've seen before.

AndyClifton

Yeah, I think I first saw this thing in a Lasker book...which was in the fact the first chess book I ever got (Lasker's How To Play Chess).  And I still don't have it memorized! lol  Hopefully I could figure it out though when the time came...

waffllemaster

Heh, me too :)  My first book (which was my Dad's) Horowitz's How to Win in the Chess Endings, had this position also.  It's pretty memorable to me because the moves back then were super mysterious and impossible to find.

AndyClifton

Yeah, it was practically mystical or something.  Like magic. Smile  Even though I really didn't understand half of them and I thought the whole thing was too long-winded and wrong (lol).

waffllemaster

Ah yes, long winded and wrong ;)  He started (or ended?) each chapter with a "tough" position like this.  I remember my brother and I played one out (after I read the analysis of course) and "refuted" one of the lines lol.

AndyClifton

Yeah (heehee!).  Oh well, I guess it's like guys on here talking about some (obviously) composed problem like it's just some random position... Laughing

chessgenius2014

Really nice and interesting puzzle. Hard to see at first and made a few mistakes but I was able to finally get it right.

gaereagdag

Nice puzzle. Tough one. Took me about 20 minutes to do it: first time I slipped up once but got the other 10 moves correct.

TonyH

The point is to learn the ideas involved... 

the key tactical points are  deflection as a tactical them against the bishop and zugzwang to force the bishop off the diagonal. 

The simple idea is if the bishop gets to b8 then it can no longer defend the diagonal so the fight is against the king's ability to guard a7 and c7. cutting off the b6 access point is key and forcing the bishop so it can be attacked from both adjacent long diagonals. is the reason for the odd moves.

AndyClifton

The real point is to learn how to do it (not spout a bunch of windy synonyms about it). Wink