[Puzzle Road] Check the king for a good promotion (P2)

Welcome (again) to Puzzle Road!

Let’s continue the Puzzle Road with the second tactic! I thank you for all your nice feedbacks and your comments and I’m happy that you like so much the puzzle road! As said in the first blog for the puzzle road with the first puzzle, we will have 42 puzzles: that does mean 1 puzzle per day while 6 weeks, with an explanation and a title. Each move is analyzed, and you can naturally find at the end of each post the link to the old puzzles of the Puzzle Road.

This time, we have an interesting endgame with Bishops of the same color-square! White has no pawn more, and the black c-pawn does need only 2 moves to be promoted to a queen! Maybe, White can use the check-possibilities to win tempo and finally promote before Black, does it? Can Black sacrifice their Bishop for the white pawn? We will see how to win with White!

2. Check the king for a good promotion! (Topic: luring away)

First move: d7 (!!)

The most logical and the best move: we need to advance the pawn to promote it! The Black king is obligated to be played on the e7-square to block our pawn, but it won’t reach to stop us! 1. … / c2(??) is followed by 2. E8 = Queen / c1 = Queen and finally 3. G6#.

Second move: f6 + !

The checking pawn forces the exchange on f6 and the black king can’t go on e8, because of 3. f7 / c1 = Queen, 4. F8 = Queen + !

Third move, very logic: gxf6 + !

Again, the king cannot go on e8, but by taking the pawn on g6, Black does permit 4. E8 = Queen! If the king does move on any other square, the e-pawn of White is promoted into a queen.

Finally:

The passed point of White has permit them to win and Black couldn’t promote his pawn in time! This game has been played by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Karjakin in 2018 in a blitz game! MVL is the world blitz champion!

Tomorrow will be the third puzzle of the puzzle road posted! Don't forget to share this blog with your friends and feel free to send me a friend request or to follow my blog if you want to get a notification when I post the next puzzle or a new article or if you want to find me in your friend list!

Have a good day, have fun in playing chess!

@Kyu13