Beat the Masters 23
September 1988, Position B
White to play
Contributions to the comments box are welcome. Masters’ feedback will be published tomorrow.
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As requested... my immediate question looking at the position was why Bb4 (trapping the queen) doesn't win quite a lot of material. On second glance it's a bit scarier as gxf3 creates threats on the kingside. I think I can probably walk the king to the middle and I don't see mate for Black - though on third glance(!) I wonder whether I might have some serious problems on f2, it's pretty hard to defend it against attack from the two rooks...
ReplyDeleteCheers for this Matt.
DeleteI got as far as looking at 1. Bb4 and 1. Nd2.
ReplyDelete1. Bb4 was my preferred move of the two. I thought Black's rooks would be able to double on White's second rank but that the king could escape via d2, e3 and f4 to g3. Still this seemed a bit precarious.
I thought 1. Nd2 (aiming for f1) wouldn't work due to 1... Nxd4.
Maybe, if I had more time, I'd have considered other knight moves to preserve the threat of Bb4.
1 Bb4: 10 points each gents.
ReplyDelete1 Nd2 would have been 5 points.
I'll add more in comments to the feedback post.
I went for 1. Ne1. 1. Bb4 looked very scary after 1. ... gxf3, e.g. 2. Bxa5 Rg8+ 3. Kf1 Rg4 with a possible Re4, as it is taking White a while to get organised with either attack or defense. After 1. Ne1 I felt Black is struggling to do much about Bb4. If 1. ... Nxd4 you might ge able to get away with 2. Bxd7+ and 3. Bb4 as after 3. ... Nf3+ White gets a better version of the 1. Bb4 line. But just 2. cxd4 Qd2 3. Qe3 seems to leave White a comfortable piece up.
ReplyDelete