Thursday, February 05, 2009

Of Rare Beauty

Real chess players get excited by this sort of thing. Beautiful finishes. A mate of mine got so excited by this one, that he just had to photocopy the book then handed them around this afternoon! Imagine if you could deliver a killer blow like this. I reckon they'll hand you the GM title on the spot! It's from a game, Loyd - Moore, USA 1906.

USA 1906
Lloyd
Moore
C33

1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. d4 d5 4. Bd3 Nf6 5. Bxf4 c5 6. Bg5 dxe4 7. Bxe4 cxd4 8. Bxf6 Qxf6 9. Nf3 Bc5 10. O-O O-O 11. Nbd2 d3+ 12. Kh1 dxc2 13. Bxh7+ Kxh7 14. Qxc2+ Qg6 15. Qxc5 Na6 16. Qb5 Nc7 17. Qc4 Qb6 18. Nh4 a5 19. Ndf3 Ra6 20. Ne5 f6 21. Rf3 Qxb2 22. Re1 f5 23. Rh3 f4

Position after 23...f4

Here, the author, R.G. Thimann (in King's Gambit) writes: "A fairly ordinary game despite its unusual opening, is now tranformed into a thing of rare beauty by one of the most remarkable moves ever made in actual play. Loyd, the great problemist, must have been well pleased."

Find the winning move.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

1.Qe6!!
1...Rxe6 Nhg6+ Kg8 Rh8 mate.
1...B/Nxe6 2.Nf4+ Kg8 3.Ne7 mate

Anonymous said...

Cute position - I think I have seen it in a puzzle book before.

I stupidly clicked on the comments before attempting to solve it this time - I wanted to see if anyone else thought the solution was as pretty as suggested by Amiel before bothering :P .

Annoying that the answer was right there! I don't know why anyone would do that - we all know you put it into Fritz anyway :) .

The Closet Grandmaster said...

Sorry to disappoint. But here's a question: can you spot the flaw in Mr Parker's solution?

- TCG

Anonymous said...

Actually, on second consideration, after looking at the position again, my original annoyance from seeing the answer is replaced by annoyance at the position itself!

Almost any sensible attacking move seems to force mate! And there seem to be a lot of ways to win material too.

I think the position I have seen in a book may have been similar but not identical. I'm sure I've seen that nice Qe6 move before though!

Anonymous said...

I guess the move numbers are missing from the second line, and Nf4+ is illegal :) Also he seems to have misplaced the # key on his keyboard - or is trying to add lots of Aussie slang to his answer. Hey mate? :)

silvakov said...

lol... please don't tell me the problem is trent's "2.Nf4" instead of Nf5... he just mistyped...
I thought on qxa6 as a winning move, but it isnt as aesthetic and crushing as qe6...
yet, its a "simple" interference... granted, see and play it in a live game isnt easy, but as for the artistic value, theres better examples...
a very beautiful problem IMHO is chessbase's christmas puzzles 2008/2009 number 1... about interferences, number 2 is a masterpiece, even if its a helpmate...

Anonymous said...

OK I rectify my answer:
1.Qe6
1...Rxe6 2.Nhg6+ Kg8 3.Rh8 mate
1...B/Nxe6 2.Nf5+ Kg8 3.Ne7 mate

and no I did not use fritz. (was actually at work while looking at it) and had originally considered Qxa6 but found Bxh3 annoying. so i wanted to block the bishops diagonal while not allowing the rook to swing to h6. Hence I found Qe6

If there is a flaw in this solution....I'm happy to see the improvements.