31 October, 2014

Missed tactics plus ( and a chess mystery )

A previous post showed a tactic missed in a TL game. 

While working through a number of tactics exercises, I thought the below had a similar theme, but probably more obvious....


White to play
Highlight for Solution [  15. Nf5 ! If Black takes the Knight, his Queen is lost, if not, the game is lost . Equally, 15. Nxc6 and if Qxg4 16. Ne7 mate !  From Alekhine - Muñoz*, Sabadell , 1945 . ]


*However, this just reveals how fascinating a game chess is, or perhaps more accurately, how incredibly intriguing people, their history, and motives are !

This entire game "could"  be  a fabrication by Alekhine, albeit based on his own analysis of the play arising from the earlier moves of a consultation game that occurred in 1941 !

The losing player would appear not to be Muñoz ( based on good deductions ), but cannot be identified at this point.

See the always interesting Edward Winter in Chess History for the full information. 

The Holmesian in me also likes his reference "There is also the dog that failed to bark in the night argument" although that actually comes via Leonard Barden's notes that Winter quotes.

Regardless of the intrigue, it is still a neat puzzle, with more than one solution...

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