A Puzzle no Grandmaster solved until Tal solved it

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kingkrusher called it the monalisa of chess! If anybody is having trouble understanding this, check out his video on this puzzle.

 

Beautiful.

Avatar of The_Riga_Magican
sahilbhtia wrote:

white play so bad

find a better way

Avatar of gmjoey1-Defeater

wow how could anyone not know this study? Yes its beautiful but there are some better ones. should I post them?

Avatar of toiyabe
GM_Joey-Defeater wrote:

wow how could anyone not know this study? Yes its beautiful but there are some better ones. should I post them?

Post away

Avatar of Rishi9

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/now-dont-tell-me-u-can-solve-this-endgame

This is called "Plaskett's Puzzle," but it is not known who composed it. There was at least one thread about this already, and it is indeed a striking study.

Mephisto, Tal and other SuperGMs had already been working at the puzzle for a while before Tal left, but none had found the double sacrifice. It is incredibly tempting to promote the pawn to a knight, but then black draws easily with Kg4. Actually, even if white promotes to a queen I seem to remember black having drawing chances after Kg4.

Avatar of sahilbhtia

GreenLeaf14 wrote:

Why promote the pawns to knights  and what kind of puzzle was it....???

I also agree with your idea I also do not understand why promote the pawn to knight. right procedure is pawn promote to queen or rook . any one know that please tell me

Avatar of Gorgon26

wow great!

white winsCool

Avatar of The_Riga_Magican

lol

Avatar of The_Riga_Magican

shut up

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GreenLeaf14 wrote:

Why promote the pawns to knights  and what kind of puzzle was it....???

If the pawns promote to queens, then there is a checkmate by the white bishop

Avatar of themortar

I saw this in some video

Avatar of The_Riga_Magican

nice, isn't it?

Avatar of The_Riga_Magican
themortar wrote:

I saw this in some video

yeah it was.

Avatar of chessplayer82227

then how is Tal not rated like 3200? 

Avatar of The_Riga_Magican

they had no ratings in the 1960s

Avatar of The_Riga_Magican
josephfremont2 wrote:

Wow.

the puzzle?

Avatar of ncnb

genius

 

Avatar of Amc0
sahilbhtia wrote:
GreenLeaf14 wrote:

Why promote the pawns to knights  and what kind of puzzle was it....???

I also agree with your idea I also do not understand why promote the pawn to knight. right procedure is pawn promote to queen or rook . any one know that please tell me

Look at which squares the knight controls. They are promoted to knights because only knights can stop the bishop checkmates. First knight promotion stops Bf3 mate, second stops Be2 mates, Nc7 stops Be8 mates, but Ba4 is unstoppable mate.

Avatar of n9531l

I wasn't around when this thread was started, so I didn't come across it until today. Obviously many of the comments were from people who didn't bother to watch the Kaidanov video. One comment said that the composer of the study is unknown, but Kaidanov said he learned it was composed in 1990 by a Dutchman named Van Breukelen.

I looked the position up in HHdbV and verified that it was composed by G. Van Breukelen as an entry in the composing tourney Schakend Nederland 1990. Kaidanov makes no mention of Tal. However, Tal died in 1992, probably due to organ failure resulting from a lifetime of heavy drinking and chain smoking, so it is certainly possible he was shown the position and solved it before his death.

Avatar of n9531l
Sai_1829 wrote:

seems so absurd to me that this type of end game would happen in a high calibar match.

As pointed out in the comment just before yours, this was not a game position. It is a composed endgame study.