English Chess Forum

In this game, my opponent has just played Rg2-e2 hitting my Knight, but losing his Rook. It's a simple, but easily overlooked tactic.

I feel there must be a previous example of this, but where?

[Event "Rated Blitz game"] [Site "https://lichess.org/"] [Date "2022.08.10"] [Round "?"] [White "Killoran, Gerard"] [Black "kolisalar123"] [SetUp "1"] [FEN "4k3/8/6R1/4N3/P7/6p1/KP1nr3/8 w - - 0 45"] 1-0

I've seen similar themes in tactics puzzles but this one is quite nice and unique as it chains pins and discovered attacks from apparent weakness into a winning position

You might find examples of that tactic in composed positions, maybe in a sideline or mainline of an endgame study?

Gideon Stahlberg - Henri Grob, Zurich 1934.


3k4/5p2/1R5p/3N4/7P/2P3K1/3r4/8 w - - 11 46

White played 46.Rd6+ Black resigned.

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008097

Not only famous for a dodgy opening but also on the losing end of a famous tactic - the legacy of grob becomes ever more dubious...

And now we know the theme of this weeks puzzle. All you have to do is set it up.

P. Welz - A. Wenzel, Berlin Open (3) 2009

3kr3/p7/Pp5R/1PpN1p2/2P5/5BPK/3p1q1P/3R4 w - - 0 45

White to play.

1. e4 c5 2. c3 Nf6 3. d3 e6 4. f4 d5 5. e5 Nfd7 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. g3 d4 8. c4 Be7 9. Bh3 b6 10. O-O Qc7 11. Qe2 Bb7 12. Nbd2 O-O-O 13. Ne4 h6 14. Bg2 Rdg8 15. Bd2 g5 16. fxg5 hxg5 17. Nd6+ Bxd6 18. exd6 Qd8 19. a3 e5 20. b4 f6 21. b5 Ncb8 22. a4 Re8 23. a5 e4 24. a6 Ba8 25. Ne1 Ne5 26. Bxe4 g4 27. Bxa8 Nf3+ 28. Bxf3 Rxe2 29. Bxg4+ Nd7 30. Bxe2 Ne5 31. Ng2 Qxd6 32. Nf4 Rg8 33. Nd5 Nxd3 34. Bf4 Nxf4 35. Rxf4 Qe5 36. Bg4+ Kd8 37. Raf1 d3 38. Bf3 f5 39. Rd1 d2 40. Kf2 Re8 41. Kg2 Qe1 42. Kh3 Rh8+ 43. Rh4 Re8 44. Rh6 Qf2 45. Rxd2 Qxd2 46. Rd6+ Kc8 47. Nxb6+

The lines after Qxf3 are quite interesting too, and pretty relevent to calculate correctly otherwise white just lost a piece without getting the tactic

Geoff Chandler wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 10, 2022 5:11 pm

Gideon Stahlberg - Henri Grob, Zurich 1934.


3k4/5p2/1R5p/3N4/7P/2P3K1/3r4/8 w - - 11 46

White played 46.Rd6+ Black resigned.

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008097

That's just what I needed, more proof of my unoriginality.

Gerard Killoran wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:26 pm

That's just what I needed, more proof of my unoriginality.

I would say the contrary is true - if you had never seen this pattern before and still found the tactic it means you actually figured it out over the board with your own brain which is far more commendable then winning though pattern recognition or memorised theory.

Hi Joey,

I think you are correct, if Gerard had seen it before perhaps he would not of have posted.
I'm pretty sure I've not seen the pattern before. a 6th rank Rook check forcing the King
into a Knight check allowing the Rook to potentially pick up anything loose on the file.

I found the one on chessgames on a different database which is a single database just
full of games from their site. The annoying thing is they save their games using the full name.
For example if you search for 'Fischer' you get nothing, to get Fischer's games you try a
search for 'Robert' and then you get everyone called Robert on their database.
So you have to enter 'Robert James Fischer' which is OK if you know (and how to spell exactly)
every middle name for every player who has ever played a game of chess.