his position comes from the game Dean Clow vs Brian Wall, from Shirley Herman's Half Insanity Tournament played in July 2014. 

 

   In the position on the right it is Black to move. 

 

   Answer below.

• There was a mistake for Jan 4 in the chess calendar.  The answer should have been "e4+" forking the King and Rook.  I'm really sorry about this error - it was a "copy and paste" mistake.  Thanks to everyone who let me know about this (and it was a lot of people lol)  My bad, and I apologize and regret the mistake. Anthea and I are already planning a 2016 calendar, and have a lot of good "lessons learned" from making the 2015 calendar.

•  The January 2015 Colorado Chess Informant magazine is out.  It is a 32 page PDF, which you can read for free here, http://www.coloradochess.com/  There is a picture of me on page 19 from a soul crushing game I lost to Rhett Langseth, where I was up a piece, but my king was exposed, and my Tactics Time column is on page 20. 
  

• I'm also signed up for MC2 https://millionairechess.com/registration-list-mc2 the Millionaire Chess 2 tournament in Las Vegas, October 8-12, 2015.  The cover of this month's Chess Life magazine features this tournament as well.  BTW is anyone else besides me, totally in love with the blonde model who is holding the check with Wesley So?  Wow!  What a beauty!

• I have no idea what is going on with the Tactics Time 2 paperback.  It was supposed to be out this week, but now it is saying it will not be out until February.  This is the second or third time it has been delayed.  I am really not involved with this process at all, and the only reason I know it was delayed is because amazon sent me a notice. Sorry about that too! 

• Good book I have been reading: Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts.  This book is all about "cognitive dissonance", and what a powerful force it is.  Lots of counter intuitive things about how people behave and how we rationalize our decisions.  If you like this kind of stuff I would recommend it. I might do a whole newsletter on this topic at some point. 
  

 

• I was disappointed to see my Steelers knocked out of the NFL playoffs last weekend.  Although, I wasn't able to see any of the game because of some bizarre dispute between DirecTV and the NBC affiliate (http://coloradosprings.com/southern-colorado-directv-subscribers-lose-koaa-over-contract-dispute/article/1543898) which was annoying.  Now I am rooting for a Broncos vs Cowboys Super Bowl, which I think would be pretty awesome.

• One last thing - I thought it was pretty cool how the Cowboys actually printed playoff tickets BEFORE the season even started.  Of course, they were mocked for doing this, but at the time I thought it was brilliant, and now that they made the playoffs (for the first time in several years), and won their first game, no one is laughing now.  There are actually a lot of powerful psychological things in play when you do something like this (one of which actually is cognitive dissonance). 

• I read Joel Osteen's entire book, You Can, You Will: 8 Undeniable Qualities of a Winner last Sunday, and he talks about setting goals with a physical item.  For example, Jim Carrey wrote himself a check for 10 million dollars for "acting services rendered" years before he was a famous movie star.  The Cowboys basically did the same thing by printing playoff tickets before the season.  They basically put themselves in a situation where they had to make the playoffs, because the tickets were already printed!  Brilliant! 

 

   Here is the complete game:

 

[Event "Half-assed Insanity"]
[Site "Shirley Herman's house, Colorado Springs"]
[Date "2014.07.26"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Clow, Dean"]
[Black "Wall, Brian"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "A40"]
[WhiteElo "1984"]
[BlackElo "2250"]
[PlyCount "58"]
[EventRounds "7"]
[WhiteTeam "14819401"]
[BlackTeam "1092334"]

1. d4 Na6 2. Bf4 Nf6 3. e3 g6 4. h3 Bg7 5. Nd2 O-O 6. Ngf3 b6 7. Bc4 c5 8. c3
Nc7 9. Qe2 Ne6 10. Bh2 d5 11. Bd3 Bb7 12. O-O Ne4 13. Ne5 f6 14. Nxe4 fxe5 15.
Qg4 Bc8 16. Ng5 Nxg5 17. Qxg5 Bf6 18. Qh6 exd4 19. cxd4 cxd4 20. e4 e5 21. Qd2
Bb7 22. Rfe1 dxe4 23. Bxe4 Bxe4 24. Rxe4 Qd5 25. Rae1 Rae8 26. f4 d3 27. fxe5
Be7 28. Kh1 Bc5 29. Bg3 Qxe4 0-1
 

 

   You can play through this game here: http://www.viewchess.com/cbreader/2015/1/4/Game265883782.html

 

   Answer:

 

   Brian is a king of finding brilliant tactics.  Here is played 29...Qxe4!! which wins a rook. 

 

   If White recaptures 30...Rf1+ Kh2 31. Bg1+ 32.Kh1 Be3+ discovered check getting back the queen.  33. Kh2 Bxd2

 

   It was kind of interesting because I posted this position on facebook in the Colorado Chess group.  Immediately people started telling me how "easy" it is, and how they saw the correct answer in "3 seconds".  However most of the people who thought it was easy, and "saw it in 3 seconds" had the wrong answer!  

 

   Note that there is no mate.  Black wins a piece.  James Drebenstedt made a funny comment as to why Bg1+ isn't mate, "although that would work if the bishop simultaneously were and were not on g1."

 

 

   Happy Tactics!

 

   Your Friend,