Monday, October 24, 2011

Deflection is an essential skill in the workplace, too

Over the next week or two, we'll be featuring tactical exercises from books for beginners, advanced beginners, and intermediate players..

This morning, our theme from Yakov Neistadt's Improve Your Chess Tactics (New in Chess, 2011) is deflection. An enemy piece is performing an important function: can you make it move so that it's no longer performing that function? Two examples:

Atlas-Witrthensohn, Wohn 1993
White to play and win

I love the next one!

Füster-Balogh, Budapest 1946
Black to play and win

4 comments:

Keith Ammann said...

Atlas-Witrthensohn, Wohn 1993
1.Re8+ Kxe8 (1...Rxe8 2.Qxc5) 2.Nf6+ Ke7 (2...Kf8 3.Nd7+ > 4.Nxc5) 3.Re1+ Kf8 4.Nd7+ > 5.Nxc5

Still working on the other one.

Bill Brock said...

Ding! The other one should be easy in comparison.

Chris Falter said...

In the second puzzle, 1...Qb2! wins on the spot:

2. Rxa2 Qxb1+ with mate coming
2. Rxb2 Rxa1+ with mate coming
2. Rf1 Rxa1 wins a rook
2. Qd1 Qxf2+ 3. Kh1 Qxg2#

Chris Falter said...

BTW, I'm lovin' your blog, Bill! Great content and a fun read.