Failure and Success

Success often follows in the wake of failure. This morning I played two positions from Fred Reinfeld's 1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations. I found the intended tactic easily in both, but in the first I failed to convert the advantage. Moreover, the longer I played the worse my position became. My advantage slipped away, and then Hiarcs 10 was winning.

Both problems called for a rook sacrifice that was easy to find.

WCSAC #62 Pinning: White to move


1.Rxe7 sets up a pin on the knight, and piling on the knight follows. 1...Qxe7 2.Qf3 Bg4 Reinfeld's line differs here 3.Qxg4 Nxg4 4.Bxe7 and White is winning.

A few moves later, I traded my bishop for Black's knight. Eventually a pair of rooks came off the board. My two knights appeared better than Black's rook until pawns started coming off the board.

Having failed on the first effort, I backed the game up a couple of times to a point where I could try a different plan, such as keeping my bishop. I lost these too. I spent about forty-five minutes struggling through this exercise.

Success!

WCSAC #145 White to move


1.Rxf7 Bxf7 2.Qf3 Be6 I expected 2...Bxd5 and wasn't certain if I would capture the bishop first or try 3.Qf8+ and 4.Qg7+. With the way Hiarcs 10 played, I was able to make moves I planned to examine more closely, but without the complications.

3.Qf8+ Ke7 4.Qg7+ Kc6 5.Ne7+ and Hiarcs 10 gave up on move 14, offering a bribe not to tell anyone.

The first problem gave me practice in imbalances of two minor pieces against a rook, but no success. In the second problem, I quickly had a queen and rook against two rooks and a bishop, and I had better pawns and a less vulnerable king. Success took ninety seconds off my clock, while the computer suffered through ten minutes of thinking time.