| Newsletter Issue # 9 | Tactics Time | ||||||||
| The Dark Knight | |||||||||
his game contains one of my favorite tactics from my own games.
In the position on the right it is Black to move.
Answer below.
In this game I was playing an opponent who was several hundred points lower than me. I had not played him before.
I went through the opening and middlegame without getting any kind of advantage, and went into an endgame with even material.
At one point my opponent offered me a draw. I felt that with best play for both sides, it probably would be a draw. I was not familiar with my opponent. So I got up, and looked at the pairing sheet to see what his rating was. When I saw it was 300 points lower than mine, I decided to decline the draw, assuming that he would probably make some sort of tactical mistake at some point, which I could take advantage of.
Here is the complete game.
[Event "Pikes Peak Open"]
[Site "Manitou Springs, CO"] [Date "2008.08.02"] [Round "2"] [White "Wokurka, Michael"] [Black "Brennan, Tim"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "C01"] [WhiteElo "1384"] [BlackElo "1695"] [PlyCount "98"] 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5 3. e3 exd4 4. exd4 d5 5. Nf3 Be7 6. Bd3 dxc4 7. Bxc4 O-O 8.
O-O Nbd7 9. Nc3 Nb6 10. Bb3 Bg4 11. Re1 Re8 12. h3 Bh5 13. Qd3 c6 14. Bd2 Bxf3 15. Qxf3 Qxd4 16. Be3 Qd8 17. Rad1 Nbd7 18. Qe2 Bc5 19. Bxf7+ Kxf7 20. Qc4+ Kg6 21. Bxc5 Rxe1+ 22. Rxe1 Nxc5 23. Qxc5 Qd2 24. Re2 Qc1+ 25. Kh2 Qf4+ 26. g3 Qf3 27. Qe3 Qxe3 28. Rxe3 Rd8 29. Re7 Rd7 30. Rxd7 Nxd7 31. Kg2 Ne5 32. f4 Nd3 33. b3 b5 34. Kf3 Nc1 35. Ke4 b4 36. Na4 Nxa2 37. Nc5 Nc3+ 38. Ke5 Nb5 39. g4 a5 40. h4 Kf7 41. f5 Ke7 42. g5 Nc7 43. f6+ gxf6+ 44. gxf6+ Kf7 45. Kf5 Nd5 46. Nb7 a4 47. Nd6+ Kf8 48. bxa4 b3 49. Nc4 Ne3+ 0-1 You can play through this game here: http://tacticstime.com/?page_id=1970.
Answer:
The move 49...Ne3+!! is a rare fork of knight against knight and king. Fritz 12 gave me the coveted double exclam for this move in the Full Analysis mode. If white takes the knight, he will not have time to stop the b pawn from queening. If he moves his king out of check, then Nxc4 and the pawn still cannot be stopped. My opponent immediately resigned.
Happy Tactics!
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© Copyright 2011-2012 Timothy Brennan, All Rights Reserved. | |||||||||
Inexperienced players have a fear of this piece, which seems to them enigmatic, mysterious, and astonishing in its power. We must admit that it has remarkable characteristics which compel respect and occasionally surprise the most wary players. - Eugene Znosko-Borowski
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