Your Move! e1: Wehnert-Leiss, Sassnitz 1962

 

1. Black should decline the exchange, and wins with:

   1. ....... , Q-f3 threatening mate with Q-g2
   2. Q-f1 , R-a1 The white queen saves mate, but is then overloaded by the rook.
   3. Qxa1 , Q-g2++ White takes the consolation rook and accepts the inevitable.

   Most likely, white just resigns after Q-f3. A better move for white would have been something like:

   1. Q-g4

   the pesky black h-pawn is now doomed, and white will be able to begin a push up the king-side of the board, with the king in support.

   Posted by JW       04/12/2012  at  10:10 AM  



2. You’re right about 1. Qg4 being better, but after 1… Qe6 I don’t see that pesky h3 pawn as doomed yet. But White is up a Knight…he should be winning. I see this:

   1. Qg4 Qe6
   2. Qxe6 fxe6
   3. Nc5 and White starts picking off Black’s pawns.

   But the actual game went 1. Rb2. I suspect White was worried about Black’s Rook and Queen both attacking f2. Exchange Rooks and no attack.

   Posted by Christopher       04/12/2012  at  10:42 AM  



3. I am sure white would be content with the queen trade, and giving black some garbage doubled pawns, in exchange for the reprieve of the h-pawn.

   If white really wanted to trade rooks, he should have used:

   1. R-a1 , Q-f3
   2. N-e3 , Rxa1
   3. Qxa1 , Qxe4

   It gives back a pawn, but white is still up a piece for a pawn and it gets rid of the rook.  His position is weaker than if he played Q-g4 though.

   Posted by JW       04/12/2012  at  11:44 AM  



4. Took me about 15 minutes to find 1. ...  Qf3, after 1. Rb2.  I should have been faster but I kept thinking as black my best move should be to concede.  It would be interesting to know how long everyone else took.  If I didn’t know something was up I doubt I would have found it seen it.

   I also spent some time thinking about your Amazing stories collection Chris.  I have a few Analogs from the early fifties and a few years worth from the late 60’s and early 70’s when I was a subscriber.

   One of the things I do when not trying to solve chess problems is to write and post science fiction on the web. Take a look at --- http://futureverse.wordpress.com/ if you are interested.  I got my start at Jeff Soyer’s Alphecca blog as one of the participants in Colony Alchibah. http://alchibah.com/.

   Posted by Wes       04/12/2012  at  04:09 PM  



5. Wes, there’s no time limit on this. Save your time worries for actual games.

   I’ll certainly be checking out your work. Do you post under the same name?

   I’ve got my father’s collection of Amazing Stories, some of which predate his birth. I’ve got a few from the 20’s (Dad was born in ‘36), almost complete from 1930-1936, then complete collections until the end of the war. I suspect Dad may have inherited these from Grandpa. Then it starts getting spotty again through the late 40’s-early 50’s and then stops rather abruptly when Amazing Stories went to the small Reader’s Digest size. I grew up reading these, though now I’m afraid to touch them much. Pulp paper is very acidic and they are deteriorating. I should scan them to save them. But I’ve got a whole steamer trunk full of them. The steamer trunk is an antique itself. Same one Dad stored them in.

   BTW, did you check out the game I posted earlier? Christopher-Wagner 1988? If you did, tell me what you thought in the comments on that post.

   Posted by Christopher       04/12/2012  at  04:32 PM  



6. Just checked out http://futureverse.wordpress.com. Wes, shame on you. You didn’t mention it was your blog! More goodies to read. Drew, can you link to Wes’ blog?

   Posted by Christopher       04/12/2012  at  04:39 PM  



7. Thanks for the commemt link, but naturally it does not work! The period at the end makes it fail; should read—http://futureverse.wordpress.com/ Did the same to my Colony Alchibah link http://alchibah.com/ Now without the ending period that one should work as well.  I think it was through Jeff Soyer’s blog http://alphecca.com/ I found Barking Moonbats. But that was many years ago.  Here I made only a few comments over time and I did keep reading, but it was the chess stuff that got me in as a regular.

   As far as my real name goes, I used to post under the name RalphE, my true first name and middle initial.  No great secret, but after getting a Gravatar it seemed simpler to just use Wes for everything.  Now days, and for a few years, the main blog I post at and manage when not writing fiction is the Old Dog Barks, http://www.olddog.name/ I left off the period!  There I do link to Barking Moonbats and have even once or twice commented about chess problems.

   Posted by Wes       04/12/2012  at  05:50 PM  

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.