Chess General

Can you solve this puzzle? White to move.

White Bishop to D3, rook takes it, pawn at C2 takes rook.

Interesting position: White is up a piece for 2 pawns, but both sides have enormously devastating attacks in the wings. Black's king is stuck in place by the two bishops, and the back rank is uncovered, and it'll take some time to get the bishop out to let the rook defend things.

Meanwhile, Black is attacking no less than three of white's pieces, and has some king threats of his own.

I'm at work, and can't sit here and calculate out all the possible lines, but Nxf7 is looking like a strong initial move. It moves the knight out of the line of fire, it protects the critical bishop, and if he takes the queen, Raxd1 gives you a lot of mate threats that are hard to counter. Black's checks are more or less neutered by the possibility of Bg3, which while it would be pinned, can still nail black's kings foot to the floor.


So the "obvious" course of play for black pretty clearly loses.

Nxf7, Rxd1
Raxd1, and you've got all sorts of mate threats on d8. You can try to block them by playing something like Nd5, but then white can take his time taking your rook on a8, and play c4 when convienent, which leads him to have enough other pieces to compensate for the queen.

Black probably can't get away with taking on d1, therefore, and that means some other line, possibly centering around a counterattack of some sort, but I'm not seeing anything that regains the initiative.

If Bd3 then ...Rxe5

Not Qxg5+ ?

I'm going to put in a final hazard of "best" play for both sides of

Nxf7,Rxd1
Raxd1, Nd5
Nxh8, Qa4
Bc8, Qxc2

Which gives white 2 rooks and a minor piece for the queen and keeps a lot of the threats while neutering blacks threats in return. If there's a better continuation, I'm not seeing it.

>Can you solve this puzzle?
Be black.

If it's white to move, I'm pretty sure I could take you (or just about anyone) with the white pieces? Care to put it to a quick Lichess match?

Puzzle opponents wouldn't go for a trade like that.

There's nothing to take at g5

If white plays Bd3, there's a knight at g5. There's only nothing to take at g5 if white plays Nxf7, at which point Rxe5 immediately loses to Qd8++

no matter what you do you always lose either the rook or the horse, if black takes down the white horse at G5 white king gets checked, however if you move the queen to F3 you can then take the black tower, if he uses his tower to take down your bishop, you take the pawn at C6 and check him, the only move he can do is to move his king to B8, then the only move you need to do to win is to place your queen at B7 and checkmate white wins.
he cannot take your queen with his king becouse you have the bishop covering the queen.
cheers

let me rephrase that becouse i made a mess.
you move your queen to F3, he will use his tower to eat your bishop at E5, you then use your queen to eat the pawn at C6 and check his king, the only move he can make is move his king to B8, you then move your queen to B7 and checkmate

>horse
>tower

Stop baiting.

If Qf3, then I would not play Rxe5, since that loses immediately. I'd play Qxg5+ and then assuming you play Bg3, I'd probably follow up with e6 and then getting my bishop out, with a considerable advantage to black.

not my first language, lol

white moves from G5 to F3
black takes the queen at D1
White takes tower at D1 with tower at A1
black uses his queen to take down horse at G5
white moves tower at D1 and checkmate
that or
black uses his queen to cover D4 in which case you take his queen at D4 with your tower at D4, then move to D8
btw im the same poster as this

If white starts things off by playing Nf3 from g5, then black can't take it on the 4th move of your continuation.

Furthermore:

Nf3, Rxd1
Raxd1, black counters with Nd5, blocking your checkmate route.

One amendment, as black I would play Qg4+ first before taking white's queen, so my queen is out of the line of fire from white's knight.

if you do that then i white takes your queen first

btw my bad on the knight i screwed up the positioning

If the knight is on f3, black can go to g4 because the knight blocks the queen's access to the square.

woops, i beg for forgiveness

guys, don't overlook that black is acutely threatened by checkmate on D8. taking the queen on D1 is hazardous for black.

that said, my move would be Bb5. with impending checkmate.

Well, to an extent, but you can (for the most part) cover it by playing Nd5 afterwards and blocking the line again.

Bb5 probably loses to

Bb5, Qxg5+
Something to evade or block the check, Kb7.

What about pawn to c4?

Same general response

c4, Qxg5+
Bg3,Rxd1
Raxd1,Nd5


I can afford to give the knight back when I'm up as much material as you give me by playing something like c4.

Order leman russ demolisher to target F7 with its main cannon (cross template), C6 with the demolisher cannon to remove rook resistance, and focus the heavy bolters on the black queen.

For the Emperor!