Daily Chess Puzzles

[integral]

12 minutes ago, Joshe said:

No matter the continuation, black can't win if white plays: a8 -> a7 -> h7. 

Is that not the solution? 

No this is not the solution, the game is not over after Rxh7.

after Rxh7 Kxh7 if you make 1 mistake as white the game is a draw.

This is a puzzle to win as white not draw. All black needs is 1 move to equalize the position, you have to make sure you dont give them that. 

Edited 6 hours ago by integral

[Jannes]

15 hours ago, integral said:

Puzzle 4, reupload

White to move and win. White pawns move up.

Rook to a8 check forces King to g7 as the only move, Rook to a7 forces the King to move again. Blacks King moving to the 8th rank again would lead to repetition down the line and the King also cant close the distance to the Rook because when the King moves out of check in the 7th Rank the white Rook can just grap the black Rook so the King needs to go the the 6th Rank. Here g6 is vastly superior to h6 because Black still keeps the option of mate in 1 by not blocking its Rook in that position. 

White has 4 options to prevent this:

1) Exchanging Rooks on h7

2) Bishop to d5

3) Rook to a6 going for another check 

4) Bishop to f7 checking the King 

..

Option 2) and 4) are nonsense

Option 1) forces the Black King to take the White Rook. Taking the Bishop would lead to a loosing endgame (4 white pawns vs 2 black paws with a Rook remaining each). However then Black cant stop the Pawn from reaching the 8th rank. So thats a winning sequence. 

Option 3) is kind of messy as the Black King has many different escape routes. If white plays right, white can win off this material advantage though. 

I dont think I added anything new, just bringing together what was already said. 

[integral]

@Jannes Ok good, so after Ra8+ kg7 Ra7+ kg6 Rxh7 kxh7, what does white play next?

[Joshe]

21 minutes ago, integral said:

All black needs is 1 move to equalize the position, you have to make sure you dont give them that. 

Not true after Rxh7. Look at the eval bar on the left. 

Black to move here: 

Nothing black can do other than take the rook, the bishop, or try to check the king. Probably best is to take the rook. But if they do that, there's no way to prevent e5 pawn promotion without taking the bishop as well. 

[Jannes]

4 minutes ago, integral said:

@Jannes Ok good, so after Ra8+ kg7 Ra7+ kg6 Rxh7 kxh7, what does white play next?

Pawn to e6

[Joshe]

@integral Nevermind, I see what you were saying. I was assuming e6 was obvious after Kxh7. If you made a move other than that, the position would be better for black.

Nice puzzle!

Edited 5 hours ago by Joshe

[integral]

@Joshe @Jannes Yes e6 is the only winning move. but why?

Can the king stop the pawn by covering the e8 square? if not why? Try to find a way for the king to stop the pawn from promoting.

Can the rook stop the pawn by moving to cover e8? if not why? Try to find a way for the rook to stop the pawn from promoting.

If you sacrifice the rook for the bishop can black stop the pawn??

Do everything you possibly can as black to stop that pawn and see if you could do it. 

Edited 4 hours ago by integral

[Joshe]

51 minutes ago, integral said:

@Joshe @Jannes Yes e6 is the only winning move. but why?

Can the king stop the pawn by covering the e8 square? if not why? Try to find a way for the king to stop the pawn from promoting.

Can the rook stop the pawn by moving to cover e8? if not why? Try to find a way for the rook to stop the pawn from promoting.

If you sacrifice the rook for the bishop can black stop the pawn??

Do everything you possibly can as black to stop that pawn and see if you could do it. 

The easy thing to calculate is the king can't catch the pawn before promotion due to bishop and pawn working together, and obviously black's rook is blocked, so it can't reach it in time. 

But, you can catch the pawn if after capturing the rook on h7 and white moves pawn e6, by sacrificing the rook for the bishop, and the king could make it over in time to stop the pawn. After that pawn falls, the position would look something like:

But this is lost. 

Edited 4 hours ago by Joshe

[integral]

6 minutes ago, Joshe said:

by sacrificing the rook for the bishop, and the king could make it over in time to stop the pawn

No! lol even if you sacrifice the rook for the bishop, the pawn cannot be stopped!

Rxb3, e7.

The pawn is a unstoppable beast

Edited 4 hours ago by integral

[integral]

the order is Kxh7 e6, Rxb3 e7

[Joshe]

12 minutes ago, integral said:

No! lol even if you sacrifice the rook for the bishop, the pawn cannot be stopped!

Rxb3, e7.

The pawn is a unstoppable beast

lol. I see. You just ignore the rook and keep pushing p. Damnit! 

[Joshe]

I've always been fascinated by what keeps me from seeing the obvious when I'm sufficiently deep into a line.

For example, if you were to give me this puzzle: 

I could find it immediately. But since I was sufficiently deep into the line, my mind couldn't see it. 

It's always a matter of being too zoomed in. Like here, maybe the pattern of "they take my piece, I take theirs back" was operating so strongly in the background that it prevented me from seeing I could just ignore their capture. 

The solution would be to somehow see each position as if it we're totally new, inheriting no assumptions from the previous line. But how to clear the inertia or fixation from the previous line? This seems like a high-leverage meta skill.

"Calculation interia". Need to figure out how to clear the cache. 

Edited 3 hours ago by Joshe

[integral]

56 minutes ago, Joshe said:

I've always been fascinated by what keeps me from seeing the obvious when I'm sufficiently deep into a line.

I could find it immediately. But since I was sufficiently deep into the line, my mind couldn't see it. 

It's always a matter of being too zoomed in. Like here, maybe the pattern of "they take my piece, I take theirs back" was operating so strongly in the background that it prevented me from seeing I could just ignore their capture. 

The solution would be to somehow see each position as if it we're totally new, inheriting no assumptions from the previous line. But how to clear the inertia or fixation from the previous line? This seems like a high-leverage meta skill.

"Calculation interia". Need to figure out how to clear the cache. 

I fully agree.

One of the ways i went about training this was to list the high quality questions that would give me these insights and then to remind myself to ask these questions on every step of the calculation. Then with repetition these high quality question become second nature, automatic and part of the subconscious. 

For example: What can i learn about the position that i dont already know?

If you pause on each step of the calculation and relax into it and with out skipping ahead and allow the future position to really sink in, that help alot, but it requires patients.

--

Designing high quality questions and knowing what question to focus on is super importnat.

Its basically the act of designing your own thinking process.

Meta-thinking-design.

---

But alot of people dont go this Meta route and just rogue learn it with pattern recognition and inherit tallents, i feel like all the top players are like this. By missing out on the psychology and meta thinking aspects of chess you get less from it.

---

The way the top players teach chess it nonsense.

They have absolutely no idea how they became so good.

The milestones they acheaved that seperates them from the average player takes massive insight to bridge. That they are not conscious of.

Uncorupting a mind is 100x harder then indoctrinating one. 

Edited 2 hours ago by integral

[Leo Gura]

6 hours ago, Joshe said:

In that case, you'd recapture rook which would lead to white getting a passed pawn. 

If you recapture rook you will not get a passed pawn.

King should take white's rook.

Edited 2 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Joshe]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

If you recapture rook you will not get a passed pawn.

a2 captures b3 then c3 to c4.

None of it matters though because pusing e6 is better.

[Leo Gura]

You can't push e6 if the king didn't capture rook. King will not allow e6 to work.

Edited 2 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Jannes]

5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You can't push e6 if the king didn't capture rook. King will not allow e6 to work.

Not capturing the rook with the king leaves white with a crazy material advantage though. Black would only be left with a Rook and 2 Pawns vs a Rook, a Bishop and 4 Pawns.

[Joshe]

1 hour ago, integral said:

I fully agree.

One of the ways i went about training this was to list the high quality questions that would give me these insights and then to remind myself to ask these questions on every step of the calculation. Then with repetition these high quality question become second nature, automatic and part of the subconscious. 

For example: What can i learn about the position that i dont already know?

If you pause on each step of the calculation and relax into it and with out skipping ahead and allow the future position to really sink in, that help alot, but it requires patients.

--

Designing high quality questions and knowing what question to focus on is super importnat.

Its basically the act of designing your own thinking process.

Meta-thinking-design.

---

But alot of people dont go this Meta route and just rogue learn it with pattern recognition and inherit tallents, i feel like all the top players are like this. By missing out on the psychology and meta thinking aspects of chess you get less from it.

Yeah, a good metacognitive foundation would produce gains much faster. 

If I were serious about getting good, I'd spend most of my time drilling tactical motifs and game review, asking questions not only about where I went wrong, but how: was the error calculation, vision, calculation inertia, etc.? Game review is where it's at. 

I started playing when I was 13 but I keep coming and going from it. Never really studied beyond YT videos. Learned a few openings, principles, etc. I'm around 1550 rapid (10 min games). I'm pretty sure I could reach 2000 but not motivated enough to put in the time. What is your rating and how long have you been playing and how much study have you put in @integral?

They say once you reach 1800-2000, it becomes a real grind because tactics and basic opening theory no longer give you much advantage and at that point, you have to go even deeper into opening theory and end game, which would be a ton of work.

Edited 1 hour ago by Joshe

[Leo Gura]

8 minutes ago, Jannes said:

Not capturing the rook with the king leaves white with a crazy material advantage though. Black would only be left with a Rook and 2 Pawns vs a Rook, a Bishop and 4 Pawns.

Okay. And so what?

There is not a bishop.

Edited 1 hour ago by Leo Gura

[Jannes]

11 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Okay. And so what?

There is not a bishop.

Yes the Bishop is on b3 on the original puzzle. I guess Joshe has edited it out for simplicity. 

Unless you find a clever sequence you will clearly loose an endgame with such a material disadvantage. The black Rook cant do it alone.

20 hours ago, integral said:

Puzzle 4, reupload

White to move and win. White pawns move up.

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Jannes