Today's 5-second tactics
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gm Topalov
im Moen,A
From the European Club Championship taking place right now. Position after White’s 33rd move. Nice energetic play by the former World Champion has lead to the position above. The theme is clearly the weak back-rank. Black should not play 33…Qe1+ as 34.Qf1! saves everything.
WHAT IS BLACK’S STRONGEST MOVE?
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A UNIQUE HAPPENING!
Games with sacrífices are a dime a dozen, but games with 3 piece sacrífices are very rare. EVEN MORE so are those games where the 3 sacrífices take place on the same square! Witness the example below…
im Panjwani
gm Kekelidze
From a recent tournament in Arlington, USA . Position after 21 moves of play. Normally I try to avoid demonstrating losses of my friends on this blog (Raja and I have done a lot of chess work together) but here I am certain that Raja would not take it the wrong way…Black has big problems with his piece development and coordination. The extra two pawns he has is irrelevant. The Georgian grandmaster plays with great energy:
22.Nxg6!
White finds the weak spot in Black’s defences. The Knight must be taken as 22…Rf7 allows 23.Bxc6, 24.Ne7+ and 25.Qh5 with a crushing attack.
22…PxN 23.Qd3! Kf7 24.Be4 Rg8
Raja defends g6 with everything he has… the problem is that it does no good!
25.Bxg6+! RxB
26.QxR+! KxQ 27.f7!
Remarkable!! Despite being more than a Queen to the good ( to be precise, Black has 10 points more material than White does) the White f-pawn can not be stopped from promoting. Worse still, it is forced mate in atmost 6 moves. Raja played on just a couple more moves.
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SOLUTION
Moen,A–Topalov,V: 33… Bh6! 34.Qxh6? (34.Qg3 avoids the mate, but Black is lost in any case) 34… Qe1+! 35.Rxe1 Rxe1# 0-1