Sunday, December 07, 2008

Good Moves, Best Move

Some of the oldest chess advice : "If you find a good move, look for a better one."

In a Red Hot Pawn correspondence game, I won Black's f-pawn and looked forward to a winning ending here. I could follow all kinds of traditional advice, develop pieces, push passed pawns, rooks to open files, etc., etc.



I must admit the best move did not occur to me at all before the position had been reached, and not even then until at least 10 minutes of mentally trying out various possibilities. So no points for searing advanced tactical vision, but full points for finding it in the end.

What is it?

20 comments:

Lauri said...

I find two good moves and after both whites position looks totally won. d5 is my favourite introducing double threat of dxc6 (and if bishop runs away white has beautiful pawn chain and passed pawn) after which Kf2 introducing threat of Rh1# and winning knight which is only piece to avoid the mate. Kf2 is another good move introducing the mate threat once and for all.

James Stripes said...

I like 1.Kf2 when the knight must go to f6 or f8 to prevent checkmate. 1...g6?? 2.d5+ followed by mate.

1.Kf2 Nf8 2.Rh1+ Nh7 3.Bg6 Rf8+ 4.Kg1+-

wang said...

Kf2?

tanch said...

I would play Kf2 right away since Black can't stop mate. :)

I'll readily admit that if this was an actual game, I might miss this move.

Robert Pearson said...

I'd be interested in feedback about how long it took to see Kf2! by the commenters. I looked at d5 for quite awhile and it does maintain a winning position, but one little king move and it's over.

Of course I may have given a few too many clues and directed you too much, but the reason this position was interesting to me was that leading up to it I was in "endgame mode" to a certain extent, and it took quite awhile to focus on Black's king and realize how short of squares it is.

I think this happens to everyone occasionally, you're in "the opening" so you develop a piece instead of playing a winning combination, you're "attacking" so you miss transitions to a winning endgame. I'll try to find some more examples.

Blue Devil Knight said...

I saw it fast, but you buttered us up with phrases like "killer" move which means it has to have a big payoff.

Blue Devil Knight said...

chessyman: blogotypes 3 and 28.

Anonymous said...

Well! I see you're finally back! (Good thing.)

Kf2 did not take long to find, but there's no "White to play and win" sign OTB either.

@BDK: LOL on the blogotypes!

Blogurway said...

Well my friend i see you are very confident.are you?

Robert Pearson said...

chessyman: I am considering linking, and I appreciate the link on your site, but the problem is that a) your blog is so full of ads, buttons and "stuff" that it seems more commercial than blog, and b) it takes FOREVER to fully load.

I am redoing my links soon, and I will be separating the categories differently--do you mind being in "commercial?"

Regards,

Robert

Blogurway said...

Just got the alert of your follow up comment & you know i was optimizing my blog to my potential(removing widgets,compressing css etc) just before...I will really appreciate a link from you though...check it out in a day or two..if you think it's linkable then lucky me ...gotto run now for optimization ...lot of work needs to be done...I am shifting my linklist from sidebar coz the list is big & so the sidebar looks cluttered...if you can't find your link look for the link tab in the top menu bar...will be glad to discuss some chess stuff with you later..have a nice day & cya

Anonymous said...

I'm 1920 USCF and Kf2 was my first candidate move.

Fetiche Nouvelle said...

I saw 1. Kf2, thought, "Hmmm, what about 1 ...Nf6?" then realized that 2. d5 busts that. Then, "Hmmm, what about 1 ...Nf8?" If 2. Rh1+, Nh7, 3. Bg6 wins the Knight. But there doesn't appear to be an immediate mate.

XY said...

Kf2, about the first move I looked at, so perhaps 1 second after having begun looking for moves (before that I counted the pieces and pawns -- the first thing I do when looking at a new position). Probably a bit of luck though, just sort of jumped out on me.

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