Tactics Analysis #7

Current Puzzle rating: 2305 (+21)
Current puzzles completed: 1341 (+66)

I've been a bit ill this week so the blog is a bit behind. This is the post I would normally have made on a Saturday.

Position #1

In this position, I guessed that we would be attacking the king as it looks exposed, we have the queen, rook, knight and pawn while the White king has only a few pawns around it. I tried to calculate the result of the queen sac, but didn't think it lead anywhere, which left me with a couple of candidate moves. Since I can't really give a clear picture of the ideas here, I'm going to try to break down the candidate moves I looked at.

1. ... g3+ I looked at this, assuming 2. fxg3 would be the response. I then wanted to play Ng4+ assuming I could wiggle my way in, but the king is able to escape (for example 3. Kg1 Qxg3 4. hxg4 Qh2+ 5. Kf2 and the attack is over).

1. ... gxh3 2. g3 Ng4+ 3. Kh1 and the White king is sheltered behind the Black pawn

SOLUTION
1. ... Nf3+ 2. Nxf3 gxf3 3. Qc3 fxg2 4. Qxh8+ Qxh8

Position #2

For this one, we have a passed pawn we want to push forward with, and the Black king looks exposed. We also can see the White king is under pressure from the rooks on the third rank. I initially tried to find something with f6 or Ne8-Nf6, but I missed that if Black plays h6 he then has Rh3# - so White needs to play with a little more threat and urgency than in my original ideas.

SOLUTION
1. Nxd5 Rxh3+ 2. Kg5 f6+ 3. Kxf6

Position #3

I spent a long time looking at the pieces here to try to find a good attack. It may also be apparent that we can't really save the bishop, and can combine these two ideas to find the right attack.

SOLUTION
1 ... Bxg2 2. Kxg2 Rg6+ 3. Qg3 (if 3. Kh1 Qh3 4. Rg1 Qf3+ leads quickly to mate) Rxg3 4. hxg3 Qc6+

Position #4

I found there were a lot of moves to look at here, but couldn't find anything that really worked. I tried looking at the checks, but none of those lead anywhere. The knight doesn't seem to have anywhere to go. In truth, this should probably not be that difficult if we think about it like a game - White has just attacked our rook on f8, so what are we going to do about it?

SOLUTION
1. ... Rf5 (White can't re-defend the lsb and if it move the dsb is under threat) 2. Bf4 Qxd1 3. Raxd1 Rxc5