June Blitz & Memes

Hello, my fellow Blitz players, and welcome to another edition of Blitz & Memes. If you're a fan of tactics taken from amateur online blitz tournaments, then you have come to the right place, because that is what I do.

As per usual, the puzzles have been pulled from the Japan Chess Federation's monthly blitz tournament: TGIF Blitz. The tourney takes place on the 3rd Friday of every month, 21:00 JST, right here on chess.com. It consists of seven rounds of blitz, with a time control of 3+2; and is open to all JCF club members.

The memes, on the other hand, were gathered from the disparate corners of the InterWebs.

Good luck trying to solve all five puzzles on the first go-round; this month's showings are a little more complicated than usual.

So, without further ado, lets get to Blitz & Memes.

Separation Anxiety

In the first round, IM rnanjo, playing Black was able to convert this mate in 7 with ease. Luckily for us White played inaccurately, so it is only a mate in 4.

Hint: If you listen carefully, you can hear this puzzle...

Pigs on the 7th

Here in this 6th round encounter, lightnig3119, playing Black is up against two rooks on the 7th rank, which is usually a death sentence, but he was able to steer the only path to victory.

Hint: Stop defending and start offending...

A Game of Chicken

When I was a kid, we used to play a game called chicken: we rode our bicycles head-on at each other and the first to swerve away was the chicken and thus lost...

In the 6th round, IM rnanjo, playing White, finds himself in a similar predicament. The h-pawn is two squares away from promoting, yet his queen is under attack. What to do?

Can you win this game of chicken?

Royal Fashion

In this 2nd round match-up, Shiki_chess, playing Black, finds himself in a complicated position. Pins and double attacks are all over the board. A difficult set of moves to play, unless of course you've realized that the memes and titles are usually giant hints...O_o...

Can you recognize this familiar pattern?

Everything and the Kitchen Sink

In this 7th round clash, yuutin, playing Black, decides to simply throw everything and the kitchen sink at White...

This one is straight out of the Tactic Trainer.

And that was it, that was June Blitz & Memes. Congratulations to IM rnanjo for winning with a perfect 7/7 score. Yet, more importantly, congrats to the few of you who were able to solve all 5 tactics on the first try...you are the real IM...

As always, thanks for reading, and feel free to share these tactics and memes with your friends down at the library or chess club.

Cheers, SheldonOfOsaka.