ChessCafe.com recently named Invisible Moves by Yochanan Afek and Emmanuel Neiman its 2011 Book of the Year. Invisible Moves beat out very tough competition, including fellow finalists How to Reassess Your Chess (4th edition) by Jeremy Silman and Lessons With a Grandmaster by Boris Gulko and Dr. Joel R. Sneed.
Here is a remarkable position from that book. In the diagrammed position, White's position looks hopeless, with his poor king under siege. Unsurprisingly, White immediately succumbed with 36.Qxg3? Qh1#. White missed an amazing resource that would have saved the game! Can you see it?
12 comments:
I still don't see it (even though it has to be a move that prevents mate in one).
Would perchance this invisible move be made by an invisible piece?
That is amazing!!!!!!
I take it you solved it?
As soon as I stopped looking for a draw and began looking for a win....
It is quite incredible - not something that one would expect to encounter in actual play rather than a problem. Zueger must have kicked himself for missing this brilliant save - although damned near everyone else would have missed it too.
That's fantastic!
I wonder if any human would see this in an actual game, even the likes of Kasparov. Only when you get to White's fifth move does it make any sense. People normally sift through candidate moves and quickly reject those that seem crazy - as these do until you get to move five.
Have you ever seen Mitrofanov's famous study? Now THAT'S amazing. http://bit.ly/A0QoA3
Not fair to torment readers.
I stuck the position in the computer and found another nice point I'd missed: 36. Rg7+! Bxg7 37. Qxg7+! Kxg7 38. Bxf8+ Kxf8 (to me, the sacs are not so surprising because of the mate hanging over White's head) 39.Nxh3!! and now I missed Black's best defense 39...Ke7
(The Queen is trapped after 39... Nxh3 40. Nf3!) 40. Nf3!! (anyway!) Nxf3 41. exf3 and the Qh2 is safe but eternally stuck: Black can't stop White from queening a pawn.
I figured it out as far as 39.Nxh3 by brute force, but I couldn't tell whether that was enough for white.
Bill - I think Black's best chance, albeit still plainly lost, is 39...Ke7! 40.Nf3 Qxh3! 41.Bxh3 Nxh3.
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