Tactics Time Newsletter April Fools Day!

Published: Sun, 04/01/12

Newsletter Issue April Fools 2012

Tactics Time

Happy April Fools Day!

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed. ~Mark Twain


T

oday I would like to wish you a Happy April Fools Day, and give a completely different type of problem than I normally do.

In the position on the right it is White to move and NOT CHECKMATE HIS OPPONENT :-)

Answer below (and there is an answer - this isn't a trick question).

This is a position that I saw posted on reddit.com, here: http://redd.it/rkysq, under the title "I teach chess and this is one of my favorite puzzles to give to beginners".

Normally I focus on real tactics from real class player games. I do this, because after looking at thousands of amateur class player games, I realized that most of these games are being won or lost based on fairly primitive tactics, and I feel that studying real tactics, from real games, is the best way to win more games, and raise your rating.

But since today is April Fools, I thought it would be fun to give a composed problem where the answer is to find the WORST possible move :-)

Take some time and try to figure this one out, before looking at the answer below. I had a lot of fun with it.

I also thought it would be fun, since several other chess players and chess websites mark the occasion of April Fools Day.

Chessbase.com normally does a "fake news story", and Life Master Brian Wall hands out his "Jim Burden - Francisco Baltier Award" each year on April Fools day to a player who lost his queen in the game (normally due to poor moves, not a sacrifice) and still somehow managed to win the game.

Here is the position in PGN format, so that you can copy and paste it into your favorite PGN viewer:

[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "New game"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "B3r1BK/1r5B/6R1/2p1p1p1/2P1k1P1/1p2P2p/1P2P2P/3N1N2 w - - 0 0"]
[PlyCount "1"]

Answer:

Every move, except one, is a checkmate for white.

That move is 1. Rc6+!! or "??" depending on your point of view :-)

After 1. Rc6+ black is in check, but can get out of it with 1...Rxh7.

Moving the rook to c6, blocks the check from the Bishop on a8, which was originally pinning the Rook on b7.

The key to solving this is really looking at every legal move that white can make (which there are not a lot of), and then asking, "what would happen if I moved here".

Here are all of the legal moves for white if you are interested:

   Analysis by Fritz 13:

   1. +- (#1): 1.Bxb7#
   2. +- (#1): 1.Nc3#
   3. +- (#1): 1.Rxg5#
   4. +- (#1): 1.Nd2#
   5. +- (#1): 1.Ng3#
   6. +- (#1): 1.Nf2#
   7. +- (#1): 1.Rd6#
   8. +- (#1): 1.Rf6#
   9. +- (#1): 1.Ra6#
   10. +- (#1): 1.Rb6#
   11. +- (#1): 1.Re6#
   12. +- (#1): 1.Rh6#
   13. +- (#1): 1.Rg7#
   14. +- (#5): 1.Rc6+ Rxh7+ 2.Kxh7 Re7+ 3.Kg6 Rg7+ 4.Kh5 Rxg8 5.Nc3#

Happy Tactics!

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