SUNDAY CUP RAPID & MEMES

Hello, my fellow Rapid Players; and welcome to the latest edition of the Osaka Papers. If you're a fan of tactics taken from amateur online rapid tournaments then you have come to the right place because that's what I do.

Today's tactics are from the National Chess Society of Japan's Sunday Cup open qualifier #3. The competition consisted of 15 players vying for the top 4 spots, in order to advance to the 12 player Grand Finals held next month.

The tournament was held right here on chess.com, comprising 5 rounds, with a time control of 15 mins | 10 secs.

The Memes are taking from the dark recesses of the InterWebs, where I foraged to find them...

Good luck getting all 5 tactics correct on the first try, there are 1 or 2 tricky ones.

So, without further ado, lets check out the Rapid and Memes.

A SIMPLIFIED LIFE

We were in an equal endgame, but gxh5 is a serious blunder; how should you proceed?

THE "F" WORD

White played 1.b3...so, she should have won, this is a truly shocking turn of events. The position of White's King is a problem...

OPEN SESAME

White's last move didn't leave his King with a route out of danger.

A SHISH KEBAB

Note to self: the Queen isn't a great defensive piece...can you see why?

A DEADLY EXCHANGE

Black has a loose Knight on e4, surely this impudence should be punished...but how?

And that was it, that was the Sunday Cup Rapid & Memes. Congratulations to the 4 qualifiers, Congratulations to Taro Shinoda for winning with a perfect 5/5 score...and most importantly Congratulations to anyone who solved all 5 puzzles on the first try...surely you are the True Champion.

As always, thanks for reading and feel free to share these puzzles with your friends down at the Library or Bar.

Cheers, SheldonOfOsaka.

For the 2 or 3 of you, who feel like watching a 5 and a 1/2 hour chess stream entirely in Japanese...