Test your chess: Reitstein problem 232

allanbeardsworth

White to play and win

LP Druiff v A Lubowski 1950

An interesting puzzle today.

Firstly, has it been a game, I am not sure I would have dared to play the winning move, 1 Bh6, for reasons which I will explain, being to do with one of my least comfortable areas in chess. I might well have played a3, b4, Bb2, which probably improves black’s position, and black must be better then with the two bishops and such a strong knight (though Ne4-c3 would come next) (Stockfish confirms this: slightest advantage to black after Bb2, though interestingly black’s advantage increases if white tries to swap off the Nd5: the engine is happy to exchange the knights).

But it is not a game, it is a puzzle, so 1 Bh6! is the most natural move to try first.

1 Bh6 f6

If black doesn’t take, and he didn’t in the…

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