Puzzlers!

Puzzlers!

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One of the small pleasures in chess is creating puzzles from our own games. In a way we try to immortalize those moments where our hard work in chess study meets up with the good fortune of fortuitously placed pieces.

 

Before I get to examples from my own games, I'll give a description of what makes a good puzzle. Every move of the winning side should be the best move in that position without ambiguity. If the puzzle is interactive, it's not necessary that each move of the opponent be the best defense, but the winning side must also be able to win against the best defense.

 

 This puzzle comes from a casual game of blitz.


 
 In this puzzle my opponent captured a rook on d1 with his bishop, overlooking the upcoming punishment.

 
In this example I was the greedy one, taking a piece on g6 with my queen. I was punished swiftly. 

 
This puzzle has a minor flaw in that against best defense by black the first move is ambiguous. The puzzle solution allows black more leway to go wrong.

Welcome to my blog! In the USCF I am rated 1921.

 

The content posted here is from my real chess experience, either games I've played or observed. I'll try to put an instructive twist on it. So if you're looking for a glimpse into how a B player thinks about the game, check in and see what I've got. Well, recently my rating has gone over 1800, so perhaps I should list myself as class A instead of class B, but it's not a huge difference.

Loomis
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