Breaking Down a Puzzle Step By Step #4
Hi, chess friends! Today, I will continue my series on breaking down a puzzle that I solved, and how I ultimately came to the solution. My goal is for this to be instructive content for my readers as to how to approach tactical positions, which can apply in real games.
The position below is Black to move, and what is the best continuation? Feel free to give it a shot before continuing, as I'll be commentating on the position!
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White just played f4, which indicates that our Queen is attacked. OK, understood! 👍 The first two things I noted to myself is how weak White's King is (all of the Kingside pawns have moved), and that I have the Rook on the g-file and the Bishop on the a8 square slicing through that diagonal. That spells bad news for White.
Now, it's time to look for checks, captures, and attacks. I immediately noticed Rxg3, Qe3+, and Qd5 (threatening mate). I quickly realized that after Qd5, Bf3 blocks the attack on the diagonal, and I'm left with nothing. On Rxg3, I saw White is getting away with Kf2, and if I play Rg2+ or Qxf4+, White just wiggles away to Ke1. Here are the variations so far in case you're getting lost!
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So that leaves us with one more candidate move I didn't mention -- Qe3+. I had it on the back of my mind, but I didn't realize until later how simple it is. After Qe3+, what are White's legal moves? As the Bishop and Queen take up space on the Kingside, the only legal moves are Rf2 and Kh2. Well, on Kh2, I quickly saw Qxg3#. If Rf2, I realized that just Qxg3+ is game over. Rg2 gets taken, Kf1 falls for Qg1#.
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I think this puzzle is a good example as to why pattern recognition is extremely important... it builds on more difficult tactical problems. I was able to get the followups to Qe3+ (and refutations to other moves) quickly, because of my acute pattern recognition.
I hope you enjoyed this post! As always, feel free to give me more content ideas. Otherwise, I'll see you for the next post!
