Looking for Trouble

After over 100 hours of tactics training, I have yet to see an increase in my Live Chess rating, even though my tactics rating continues to climb. Close to quitting Live Chess, and only playing Turn-Based Chess, I stumbled upon this book - Looking for Trouble by Dan Heisman. Heisman has come to the rescue again.

Tactics training focuses on mistakes, then finding the forcing move(s) that will win material or deliver mate. Tactics training does not direct one's attention towards looking for threats made by the opponent, and not all tactics puzzles even have a threat attached, just a blunder by the other side.

"Almost all tactics books take the approach of providing a position where there is a forced win, checkmate, or draw. The text then states 'White (or Black) to play and win (or mate or draw)' and then you are asked to find the solution.

However, most games are lost when either: 1) you make an outright oversight, where your opponent had no threats but, after you blunder, the opponent can mate or win material, or 2) you miss a simple threat made by your opponent's previous move, allowing your opponent to carry out this threat, usually a basic tactic winning material or checkmating." -  Dan Heisman, Looking for Trouble

This will be my longest running topic and it's fine if I'm the only contributor. My goal is twofold: 1) as in tactics training, to build my pattern recognition of threats and 2) help others in the same boat as me, those who miss trouble even when it's staring them right in the face. 

Feel free to post your own threatening chess positions, from easy ones that will benefit young scholastic chess players to those that will challenge a master.

I'll begin with a position I show to my elementary students.

In that vein, here's another similar problem. I believe this arises from the Vienna game...

After 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Nxe4 4.Qh5, I flunked this test, even knowing there was a threat. Wow, keep them coming, when you have the time. Not giving the answer away, I'll post this as a puzzle. Thank you.

What is Black's threat? White to move.

I frequently use this one with my students after they learn the solution to a problem composed by this ancient chess writer.

Another one that you may see...

While there may be other ways to defend here, this seems to be all that masters play. If you had another defense, it may still be playable, but I wanted to put several moves' worth of threats in one puzzle.

I've seen this one in a game between GMs. Hikaru Nakamura has White. Nakamura lost with a tactical oversight on move 72 or thereabouts in one game I saw. I believe that he's played it a few times.

One more for today. I've played the black side of this twice so far; it comes from the Two Knights defense to the Italian game. This is the Max Lange Attack. Good luck! (This one is a bit harder than the preceeding puzzles)

This is bad, but good. I spent ten minutes on this before maybe seeing the threat. Good grief. This is definitely the area in which much growth is required. BTW, I wrote Dan Heisman an e-mail, thanking him for writing Looking for Trouble.

O.K. I didn't turn on my chess engine. Is this the threat - 1.cxd5 exd5 2.Qg4+ Kb8 3.Qxg3, and White wins the advanced g-pawn? I hope so, but then, we are not playing hope chess, but real chess here. Great stuff!

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Edit -  Geez! I got everything turned upside down and was looking for White's threat. I have no idea why. I'll give it another go.

I got this one in 5 seconds. After 1.e4 e5 2.Qh5, it was what I now call threat pattern recognition.  

Nakamura plays this opening in Blitz. His record with this opening isn't great in the few database games I looked at a while back. But he holds, or did hold, both the highest Blitz and Bullet rating ever on ICC.

oh.. i thought you were looking for me.

@Muskikamole.

The line you suggested in post 8 would get you mated.

Note the open h file.

Nope. There are two problems on the link that I provided. One presents a clue.

It's funny that I banked my game on this tactic, then got away with it because from this position my opponent moved his rook. White is winning, but must see and meet the threat with one of two pieces.

This Max Lange puzzle was hard. I saw the first move for Black, perhaps because I've seen it before, threat pattern recognition/counterstrike.

Move 2 and 3 followed logically, but the wheels came off on move 4, missing that threat. I ran this puzzle in Fritz, and had I played what I did on move 4 in a real game, I would have lost.  Great threat puzzle. Thanks.

not quite..

Damn, that Max Lange attack looks scary.  What about other defensive tries for black?  Qd5 seems weird and get the knights going.

I was looking at it from the wrong angle, looking for White's threat. I have no idea how I got things upside down. I'm taking another look at Ziryab's threat puzzle on post #4 again. I will now look for what Black is threatening.

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Update

Now it makes sense, seeing that Black is making the threat. I've seen this threat/mate attack in Murray Chandler's book, How To Beat Your Dad At Chess, Chapter 7, Double Rook Sacrifice on h8. In Ziryab's puzzle on post #4, the rook sacrifice threat is on h1.

White must play either Nf3, defending the mating square on h7 or Qg4.

Example: 1.Qg4 Rh1+ 2.KxRh1 Rh8+ 3.Kg1 Rh1+ 4.Kxh1+ Qh8+ 5.Qh3! QxQh3+ 6.gxQh3, and Black's double rook sacrifice fails miserably.

Interesting take on tactics training.  I think some people assumed (including myself) that finding forcing lines over and over will ingrain them enough that you spot when your opponent has one available too... but I guess that's not always true.

Being able and willing to block a threat is certainly important.  These defensive type puzzles are an interesting twist.  I will say as you move on to harder tactical puzzles though it moves away from the one forcing line stuff and a big part of solving them is making sure you can meet all of your opponent's threats/defensive moves along the way.

If you don't see the threat in post #4 after a few minutes, then go ahead and look up the answer at ziryab's link.  It's one of those that after you see it, you'll remember it pretty easily from then on.

Cool threat puzzle on post #12. I've never played White in the English opening before. Did this opening begin with 1.c4 d5 2.cxd5 Nf6?  Neat stuff.