Next Level Training #1

Hi Chess.commers, I thought I would try something different here. As you all know tactics training is a crucial part of chess. Most, if not all of the time, you always get to have a hint of how to go about solving the problem, i.e. White to play and win, or mate in 3, some such thing. Now that's great and it has its place but when your playing a game you have no such hints. All you have is your ability to see the board and pieces and where they can go, the threats, the checks and the attacks or defence.

My intention here is to begin a series of problems where you only know whose move it is. YOU have to decide what is the best move, the best course of action to take. Just like in a real game, you have to analise the position, can you win a pawn, can you get a draw, is it completely lost or can you get a win. There are no clues but what is on the board.

The idea is to improve your visulization of chess positions. Using a chess engine will NOT achive that end, so don't use one, use your mind.

Put yourself in whites shoes, this is your game.

So, look at the position for a few minutes to get a grasp of the layout, become familiar with the nuances of the position, then, give me your moves, with variations if applicable. There is no prize for being the first person to give an answer!

White to move, what would you play?

Qh6! Bf8 g4 etc...

Easy...

White is down an exchange but black's king is seriously exposed, while his pieces are badly placed on the other side of the board.

It looks like 1. Qf4 intending to checkmate black wins. I think I got all the moves covered:

Alright the best move is indeed 1. Qh6+ as pointed out (I still think 1. Qf4 wins though). Here's the variation all the way to mate:

Nice going guys but what about 1...Kf7?

Bah, of course... Here's the line:

Ok so you gave 1.Qh6+  then 2.Bf8, then g4 without any black moves, ok the so the kings got to go somewhere so lets say he goes to f7 so we have 1.Qh6..Kf7 2.Bf8 because thats what you said you would play, and now I play 2.Ne6. Then you played 3.g4, then NxBf8 so the whole thing looks like this

1.Qh6 Kf7, 2.Bf8 Ne6, 3.g4 NxBf8, you lost the bishop for>?

Hey shoopi well done. I thought I'd go for an easy one to begin with. They will get harder, lol. Thank you for illustrating the moves as well.

Well yes after getting the idea from stoppelje the rest was easy.

Of course I should have looked at the queen sacrifice first myself! 

After you take on h6 you can't play Ne6 because the Bishop on f8 gives a check. The king goes to h5 forced then g4. The position plays by itself. I never thought about the other variation but if the king goes to f7 then Qxh7 comes to mind.

Thanks!

Thanks for the analysis shoopi!

I saw Qf4 and thought it was completely winning. I stopped calculating and then took a look at the comments to see if I was right. The second I saw someone post Qh6 I became disapointed in myself. I got sloppy because I thought I saw a winning line "When you see a good move, sit on your hands and think of a better one". That would be lesson for me here.

Hi stoppeltje, the thing is this. Because you only gave whites moves I was free to do with black anything that was legal. So the move 1...Kf7 was the only alternative. Because you said your next move would be Bf8, the king not being in check on this move, I could play Ne6 and the rest we can follow from what I worte before. Anyway the whole point of the first exercise was just a taster for what is to come. It's good that you now realise that variations have to be considered.  Good call on the first move but it makes sense to justify it by giving blacks replies.

The reason why you play Kf7 is that you did not understand or do not want to understand the move order I gave you.

That is the whole point mate! I knew exactly what you wanted black to play but the fact that black chose a different path makes all the difference. When it is not a "forced" move, black can choose to make an alternate move. This is where the visulization of variations come in.

Imagine being in an OTB tournament, it's the money round, you have but one minute on your clock, you see a variation that leads to a win, you play the first move, you expect a certain reply, but you get something you did not see, now you have re-calculate. There are few things worse that having a winning position and then blowing it because you failed to see a variation.