Tactics Fourm 1

It is always good to have a bit of fun in chess, so this is the goal with my new forum  string, Tactics 1. Here I will be weekly posting tactics for you to solve.(YES, I realize I spelled Forum wrongly in the title, I wish I could change it!)

[If the answer does not immediatly come to you, consider spending some quality time solving these puzzles, they will stretch your brain and make you a better chess player!]

Feel free to post the answer below the puzzle or questions you have about mine or other's solutions. I will post the answer and/or confirm your solutions one week after I post the puzzles. ENJOY!

Puzzle #1 - White to move

You may quickly notice stopping the pawn from queening looks impossible, if your oppoonent (black) is going to queen, is there any saving grace for you from the rook or pawn? Puzzle one is a dandy, good luck!

1. Rxg4 pd1=Q

2. Rg6

and it's an unclear Rook and Pawn versus Queen endgame, but for now, White is holding on to the pawn. Basic strategy for white would be to move the white king up towards the remaining pawn, and avoid the King and Rook getting forked on a diagonal by the queen - which should be easy, because they are on opposide sides on the board. Idea is that the pawn could advance with the king protecting, and if the Black queen tries to stop the white king from getting closer to the pawn, the White pawn advances.

@Rentsy

you just missed 2. ... Qd3+ and 3. Qxg6. and more generally this kind of ending is hopeless for a rook

Well, how did you like problem 1? Before I give you the answer, I just wanted to let you know I will generally give you a hint, in an edit to my original post, towards the end of the week for those of you who did not solve the last week's problem. As many of you read in the notes section my computer crashed thursday, and I was not able to give y'all a hint. If you have not solved the problem and wish to do so, read the hint below before moving on:

Problem 1 Hint: Becasue there is clearly no way to stop the pawn from queening, the only way not to loose this endgame is with stalemate. Invision the only way black's pieces could be arranged without checking the king while also cutting off every possible square for a king move. For intance, if the black bishop were on the a4-e8 diagonal, where would the queen have to be to take away all other squares for the king? :) Good luck!

Ok, on to the solution. I see nobody posted the correct answer which is fine, but feel free to do so. My simple goal is to give you a cool problem to look at during the week!. --------d7!, simply threating to queen and being at least even, ...Bxd7, Rb8!!, d1=Q, Rb1 pinning the queen to the king, ...Qxb1 stalemate. If our opponent had promoted to a rook, the resulting endgame would be theoretically drawn. If you have doubts about that, just go to youtube.com and search how to draw a rook vs. rook and bishop endgame. Simple right? :)

Puzzle #2 - White to move

Ok, this one might be a bit easier, but in order to find the first move, you really have to see the point behind it and the next move. If you dont, it really is just a useless move. Good Luck!

Problem #2 - ANSWER

One issue with this position is if you play Nd6 and he responds Kf8 (forced), you block a rook intrusion down to d8. Sure would be nice after Nd6+ if your knight could become massless and your rook could waltz down to d8 and deliver mate right? Well, with such a strong threat at hand after Nd6, something should go off in your head, maybe Nd6 is right. Now all you have to do is move that knight with tempo and BOOM! you are threatning mate. So what move after Nd6 would "create a tempo?" Simple, Nb5, attacking the rook and mate and you win an exchange!

This is just a sample of something that could go though your head in how to solve these types of problems. Of course, the answer assumed you saw Nd6+ Kf8, that Rd8 would be mate, but this being better at tactics, learning to see things like that. Practicing tactics will allow you to see that threat faster and make the correct move sooner. The logical side was shown demonstrating that tactics can be made easy if you see everything. Hope this answer was helpful, don't forget to let me know if it was!

Problem #3 - White to Move

Simple this time, how do you force mate? This move requrires serious visualization, so check out the obvious moves, but don't forget pieces sometimes can make unexpected moves...

Tactics solvers:

I hope you are enjoying my weekly puzzles, but I have a question to pose: Do you think it would be better of me to leave you with these diagrams for a week and then give you the answers at the end, or do you think it would be more beneficial to give you the puzzle, complete with the puzzle in solvable format so you can see the immediate answer.

Pro with diagram only: 1...You can't just cheat and click the "show me" button (however I encourage you to give me your solutions so if this person wanted to cheat and get the answer without trying, that person could just look below.) 2...Allows discussion amoung you if a problem is hard enough so that it takes a group effort to solve.

Pro with puzzle with answer: 1...You could see the problem and work it (hopefully without cheating) and then see if you got it right immediately. 2...Allows discussion amoung members to give impressions of the answer.

MY GOAL is to give you all a chance to solve a tough tactic and to grow from it. I also want to drive discussion among you about the problem and what you learned or what you thought about the puzzle.

I am polling you: Which option would you rather?

Thanks!!

Hello all listning...or nobody...

I am sorry to say turnout here has been LOUSY and I am going to discontinue this forum. At least from my point of view. I hope you have been enjoying these puzzles, but I feel like this forum is not going anywhere (how can it, I misspelled the title:). I posted a question which got zero answers, and no chat has been genererated by this forum...

However, I can tell, as this is our most popular forum by views, I know this has been a success in many different ways. We have interest in tactics which I am glad to see, and, among other things, I can tell that you need motivation to participate. :)

So whenever next week, as a continuation sort of of this forum, we will begin a 10 week TACTICS CHALLENGE. I will explain the rules next week, you will learn all you need to know then. I attempted to do a year long puzzle challenge in my first group, however, senior year took me from the group, and I abandoned that forum too soon. However, it was headed the right way, and as you will see, it was quite enjoyable. So, 10 weeks, a shorter competition, and their will be a prize...Get Ready!