Chess.com's Weekly Study: August 14th 2016

Hello Chess.com!

Starting with 2016, we will be posting a Weekly Study, courtesy of Yochanan Afek, Grandmaster for composing endgame studies. These challenging positions are designed to stimulate (and improve upon!) your creativity, depth of calculation, pattern recognition and pure imagination.

V. Kalandadze, 1993

Enjoy! 

this was good, thank you

Awesome combination of a trapped piece and a sacrifice by white. Great study!

great puzzle!

6. ... h5 should have been the main line but unfortunately 8. Ra4 is not the only winning move.

Still a good study with an excellent thematic try 1. Re8+? Kf7 2. Rxh8 Ra8+ 3. Kd7 Rxh8 4. Rf4+ Kg8 5. h6 gxh6 6. Ke7 Kg7 and now Rg5 doesn't work!

In alternate line instead of 8...Rh7 what about 8...Kh7?

Or 7...Kf8 after white's Kh6?

White has more work to do.

Alt 7. ... Kf8 8. Ra4 wins the black rook or mate

Alt 8. ... Kh7 9. Ra7+ Kg8 10. Kg6 wins the black rook or mate

Studywise, losing a rook is as bad as being mated and doesn't count as more resistance. The chosen defense 8. ... Rh7 demonstrates a somewhat different mating pattern which adds valuable aesthetic content.

Note that the chess.com puzzle interface is totally inadequate to handle endgame studies and chess problems in general. In the big endgame database all major variations are entered, including your suggested defenses. When solving a study, you should be required to play both sides and find all the major variations which is impossible with the current interface.

@Arisktotle Agreed. I knew the rook would fall either way to avoid mate. I should have said white still wins but has more work to do. Thanks for adding in.