The first position comes from a game that I played in Malta against Kanyamarala Tarun, a young FIDE master from Ireland. I played White.
My friends identified various possible candidate moves: Bxf5, gxh4, Rag1, d5, and hxg4.
This list was one move longer than mine (I haven’t seen d5 at all). It is interesting to notice that I considered one move less than them. This may sound counter-intuitive but it is not. The stronger you get the fewer moves you consider and the deeper you analyse them.
The pawn was hanging, so I believe that Bxf5 has to be analysed - even if it can be rejected soon. In fact, after 1.Bxf5 Nf6 - my bishop is under attack, and I cannot play 2.Bxc8 because of 2…Ne4+ and the queen is lost. The defensive 2.Bd3 does not help, as after 2…gxh3, the threat Ng4+ is unstoppable. Therefore, bye-bye Bxf5. [A note: one of my friends did not realise that Black had this tactical motif (the double attack) at his disposal. Don’t worry, it’s OK to blunder. If you also had the same issue, try to do 3-5 tactical exercises every day for a month or two, and you will soon see your sense of danger improving.]
The next move, gxh4 was also ought to be analysed - all captures should always be considered. Moreover, White opens the column for his rook and expose Black’s king more…or not? I could not see a clear way to open the g-line after 1.gxh4 Nf6, hence I excluded this option as well. I saw 2.Rhg1 and Ng3 to target f5, but I was not convinced - too slow. If you analyse this position with the computer, it turns out that after 2.Rhg1, Black has 2…b5! What a dynamic move. To give a short variation, 3.b3 bxc4 4.bxc4 Bc7 5.Ng3 Rb8 6.Bxf5 Rb2! And the queen is overloaded. 7.Qxb2 Qxe3+ 8.Kf1 Bxf5 and Black wins. The bishop cannot be recapture because if 9.Nxf3 Qd3+ 10.Kg2 Qf3+ 11.Kh2 Qxg3 checkmate. Before you start wondering if I have calculated all this until the end, I did not. You don’t always need to calculate everything to take your decisions. I just saw that gxh4 was too slow, and rejected it because it did not fulfil the requirements of the position. We will come back to this.
Similarly, I rejected quickly Rag1 for Nf6. I could not see anything else but gxh4 entering the position mentioned above - it was just an inversion of moves.
One of my friends suggested d5, which was a big surprise for me. If the position would have been quieter (without queens?), or maybe in an endgame, d5 could have made a lot of sense. You gain space, activate your pieces, push a pawn - it seems wonderful, but do we have the time for this? I reckon that one of the reasons beginners don’t get it right already at the stage of finding candidate moves depends on the fact that they don’t start wondering which kind of position they are analysing. To be fair, it is easier to understand if you are playing a dynamic or a positional game when you know the past moves (which I knew, and they did not). Yet, try to force yourself asking this question when you analyse, even if it seems forcing at the beginning. Is this a strategical slow position, or a dynamic tactical one? You see that both kings are fairly exposed, and that there are many possible captures over the board: the position is very dynamic, hence, we must play accordingly.
Two other friends told me that they also consider hxg4 but rejected after Nf6, as Black is threatening to play Ng4+, and White has nothing better than Rxh4 Ng4+, Rxg4 fxg4, giving up the exchange. So they rejected it and opted for another of the previous candidates.
So we are screwed! All candidates are bad for White. Aren’t they?
Not really. But let’s do things in order.
First, we shall take a general look at the position to understand that it is a dynamic position. We identify a list of candidate moves. We exclude quickly the bad moves (e.g., Bxf5) and focus on the others. We analyse them until we reach a point where we can stop the analysis (there are no threats, such as captures or checks) and we evaluate the arising position.
You can’t separate calculation and evaluation of the position, even if calculation is done consciously and evaluation is done subconsciously, force yourself to take a deep look at the position (what about the kings? are they safe? which one is better placed? what about piece activity? what about the pawn structure? are there identifiable weakness/targets?).
Let’s go back to 1. hxg4 Nf6 2.Rxh4 Ng4+, 3.Rxg4 fxg4, which is what I played. Yes, I gave my rook for the knight and a pawn, but look, White’s king is finally safe now that Black does no longer have his powerful knight (which was a good attacker and defender). Moreover, all his pieces are out of the game (most of them lie on the 8th rank, will they be able to defend the king?), and I can always create a passed d-pawn. This position is much better for White. Isn’t it interesting to know that my friends saw exactly what I saw, but they rejected it, while I was mesmerised by it? It means that positional understanding is vital for decision making - it’s not always about your power of calculation. [Another friend of mine was given the same exercise and correctly played hxg4 after excluding the other moves that favoured Black - yet, she did not back up the move with any analysis and you should never do that. Always confirm your intuition with concrete calculation until you can, if you have enough time.]
White should continue this beautiful position by playing Rh1-d4-Bd4, creating fatal threats against the king. I saw this idea, but I was not precise enough about finding the right order to play those moves. Had I played using prophylactic thinking (taking into consideration my opponent’s resources), I would have probably played the position better. I started with 4.d4? to play Bd4 and then Rh1, but my opponent answered 4…Bd6! 5.Bd4-Bc5 forcing the exchange of my pivotal bishop. The game ended in a draw. The right move was immediately 4.Rh1, after which Bd6 does not make much sense, as White hasn’t played d4 yet.
I hope you enjoyed this difficult position. Soon the solution to the second exercise.
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