Tactic Time!

This post will have quite a few tactics in it from some games I annotated earlier today. Solutions will be at the bottom of the post.

Tactic #1, Difficulty: Moderate, Black to move.

Tactic #2, Difficulty: Moderately Hard, White to move.

Tactic #3, Difficulty: Easy, Black to move.

Solutions:

#1: 1. ...Ng4!! 2. Qxg4 Qf1#. The only way to continue the game would have been 2. Qg1, but then 2. ...Qxc2 and white is lost in any case.

#2: 1. Rxh5! Re8 (1. ...gxh5 2. Nxh5 Qxe2+ 3. Kg3 and black can't stop mate) 2. Qxh7+ Kf8 with a strong initiative and material advantage.

#3: 1. ...gxh2! (not 1. ...hxg5 2. hxg3 and white stands better since the knight cannot move due to Rf8+ winning the rook.) White cannot stop the pawn from queening without giving up the rook for it, so white resigned.

Upcoming Content

Hey all. That is, assuming there is more than one of you out there reading this. I haven't been able to update the past few weeks because of schoolwork, but I am on spring break now and will have a whole ton of content to post in the next few days.

Cool Finishing Tactic

The following is a tactic that I played in an online correspondence game which quickly leads to black's demise. Once you look at the position, don't check the answer until you have your own idea in mind.

So what do you think the solution is?

First you need to look at the weaknesses in the Black position.

The first thing that jumps out at me is the 7th rank weakness, and that the f-pawn is the only thing stopping mate. Any ideas yet?

Ok, here is what I came up with:

1. Ne6!!

Threatens an immediate mate on g7, and if fxe6 then Qxg7# is still mate.

1. ...f6

Only real way to stop the mate.

2. Rxc8!

This is the hard part of the tactic to see. Now if ...Rxc8 then Qxf6 and mate is unstoppable. If ...Qxc8 then Rxc8 and Black is lost. The last option is best, ...Bxc8, but then just Nxf8 and White is a whole rook up. Black resigned after 2. Rxc8.

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