The Back Rank: CT-Art 767 narrative

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

CT-Art 767 narrative

Some problems in level 40 of CT-Art are too complex for me to learn through repetition. For these problems, I will do what I learned from Temposchlucker and and BlueDevilKnight (are there others that did this that I am forgetting?), I will write narratives for these problems.

CT-Art 767:

White to move

The weakest points in black's position are g7 and h7. It would take many moves to get to h7 and if black plays h6, there's probably no route in. So g7 is where to focus the attack.

The immediate attempt to crash through, 1. Nxg7 Bxg7 2. Bh6 f6 allows black to defend g7 laterally with the queen. We would like to do 2 things better. The first is do not allow the lateral defense with the queen. Secondly, don't give up the knight for the bishop since the knight is a good attacker of g7.

There is a safe check that will allow Rxf6, so we examine 1. Nh6+. The king must move to f8 or h8. On 1. ... Kf8 we have 2. Bc5+ Re7 and now the pinned rook will lose for black after 3. Rxf6 gxh6 (gxf6 Qg8#). The critical line is 1. ... Kh8 2. Rxf6 gxf6 3. Qh4. The queen attacks the newly weakened f6 square.

Black to move

3. ... Qe7 Black must defend f6 (3. ... Re6 4. Rxd8 Qxd8 5. Nxf7+ loses quickly). White attacks this defender and the weak g7 square 4. Nf5 Qe6 5. Qh6.

Black to move