Find the Winning Moves!

Gharamian - Perrett

European Cup 2008

White to play!

Everthing hangs. It does not take a detective to see what Black played last move (Bishop on e5 took pawn on b2), however, it does take an entire police force to catch all the White pieces with criminal intent. As is well known, you can only take one piece at a time!

17.hxg6!! The queen is expendable. Especially now the bishop has an artificially created avenue to get into play, via b2. 17...Bxa1 Black is not just settling for the rook, he is also accepting that ...Bxb2 was simply too much to handle. 17...Rxe3 loses fairly straightforwardly to 18.gxh7+ Kf8 19.Bxb2 and the pawn queens. More elegant is 17...h5 18.Bxb2!! when after 18 ...Rxe3 19.Rxh5 Black is brutally mated. 18.gxh7+ Kg7 It seems as if Black might weather the storm. The king is open, but no immediate bishop or queen check can be seen; so it will have to be created! 19.h8=Q+! Deflection. The pawn reaches the 8th rank only to be removed in the service of the kingdom. 19...Rxh8 20.Rxh8 Qxh8  20... Kxh8 21.Nf7+ is another humiliating end. 21.Qe7+ Kg6 22.Qf7+ Black resigned. Mate on the next move awaits... 1-0.

(taken from the March 2009 issue of 'Chess' magazine)