Questionable Tactics in the Tactics Trainer?

Hi!

The tactics trainer (which should really be called the "find the move we want you to find" trainer since the solutions are often not tactics and sometimes not even the best available moves) gave me this puzzle today:

I was playing the white pieces. My question is, why Bxd6 instead of Bh4?

You will have to give up the bishop either way but with Bxd6 you can get two pawns out of it. 2... Bh4 3. Nf3 and now you only get one pawn for the bishop.

If Ed is right that really explains it better.

My suggestion was a bit off, I wasn't looking at g5 after the knight move (though I don't know how much better it would be) if there isn't a pawn on g3.

@martin
Really? Why not 2... Bh4 3.Nf3 Bd7 (or b6 or something) 4.Nxh4 Qxh4 ?

@ed
If there was a pawn on g3 then I could understand but there wasn't. The g pawn was on f4, apparently having captured something previously.

Do you have a link to the tactic? It should be in your history if you just did it today.

Really? I'll go look for it.

2...Bh4 3. Qh5 and White will follow up with Nf3 winning the bishop.

If Black tries to save the bishop by playing g5, Bad Things happen to his king instead.

Yeah, they are listed on your stats page. I assume you can see that without being a premium member.

..Bh4.3. Qh5 f6. Nf3 g5 .

Sorry no f6 is pinned. So caveatcanis ir right i guess.

I found my history but this one isn't listed. It was the last one I did, and I always play from my phone, so maybe it hasn't updated yet?

@colnago If you move f6 after Qh5 don't you just hang the bishop?

3....g6 is possible to remove the Q.

Ah, I see. Black can't bring any more support after that. Is there no way to use the two moves it takes white to execute this to provide an escape for the bishop?

Edit: I guess not because the black queen would need to move then the bishop is hanging again.

4. Qxh6 in that case. Then 5. Nf3

Black is castled and no rook is on h8.

I think you didn't follow the line. The question is on black's second move. 1. ... O-O 2. d6 ... with 2. ...Bh4 being questioned.

You are right, sorry.

Newer problems have shown up in my history now but this one still hasn't. Maybe chess.com took it out?

Maybe. It's possible that it just didn't register that you completed it. I've had tactics in the past that did that ... never saw the decrease/increase in rating and it didn't show up as attempted.