[Puzzle Road] Go out of my way! (P4)

Welcome to Puzzle Road!

Today, we have the fourth puzzle of the road! 50 clubs, 42 days and one objective: becoming stronger in chess tactics! The puzzles are posted in 50 different clubs every day, but never in puzzle-form. Why? Because we need to think more about tactics, like we would be in a real game!

The topic of today is clearance! To clear a square is very often used to promote a pawn, instead of letting our opponent sacrifice a minor piece for it and still have a chance to draw for example. Naturally, it’s useless to clear the case a7 for a pawn that would stand on a3… but if this pawn is standing on the a6 square and the a7 square is controlled by a Knight for example, to clear this square can be useful and will help us to promote our a-pawn. In this puzzle, we don’t have the a-pawn, but the d-pawn. But the idea is still the same!

4. Go out of my way! (Topic: clearance)

Analyzing first the start position:
- We can take the black f-pawn to have a pawn more.
- Our d-pawn needs only 2 moves more to be promoted into a queen! The problem is that Black can sacrifice their Bishop for the pawn…
- The black rook attacks our pawn, and our pawn is not protected by the rook because of the Bishop.
- We attack with our Bishop the black a-pawn, but this one is protected by the black Bishop.

Let’s find a move to clear the d7-square and to protect our d-pawn with our rook! We need to move our Bishop for that! Maybe, we have the advantage that the two bishops are on squares of the same color?

First move: Bxa6 (!!)

A brilliant move to lure the black bishop away from the c8-square! Black has now two possibilities: to take the bishop on a6 and to accept the queen or to exchange the pawns on g3. If Black does exchange on g3 the pawns, we will see the analysis in the following part of this article. If black does take the Bishop, we make a Queen and they can already give up!

Second move (after 1. … / fxg3): hxg3!

We need to take back the pawn, instead of taking the Bishop directly, because Black can, before taking the bishop again with their rook, take the h-pawn with check!

Third move: d7!

Black did not have any other choice than taking the pawn on c2… we can play d7 now, because this time, black cannot take the g3-pawn and exchange their Bishop for too many pawns! Good, they take the pawn, but we won a Bishop! Excellent for White and Black does not have any chance for to draw1

Conclusion:

Clearance can change a game! To use every time when you see an opportunity to promote a pawn! But do not play your pawn on the 7th rank too fast, because your opponent can possibly take back your pawn and exchange his Bishop for example for a few pawns that you could need later!

See you tomorrow for the next puzzle! Don’t forget to follow this blog or to send me a friend request if you want to get informed when the new tactic is published.
Have fun in playing chess and have a good day!
@Kyu13

More blogs written by @Kyu13:
The main question: How to become a stronger player?
The Scotch Game: A good opening?

Puzzle Road:
[Puzzle Road] Attack, Block and Take! (P1)
[Puzzle Road] Check the king for a good promotion! (P2)
[Puzzle Road] Bishops vs. Pawns: fight for a draw! (P3)