03 February, 2016

Not enough focus…

Christmas, New Year, time off work, new roles at work and just general living, have put this blog on a back-burner since early December, but just to show some sign of activity, for me, if no-one else, here are a couple of useful positions from a recent blitz game.


I had manoeuvred and, dare I say, planned to be in this position, with the intention of swapping off the Bishop for knight.

However, I missed a nice tactic, as I had too much focus on previous plans, rather than viewing the position.There is a much better move here than Nxe3 that I played.
 BlacktoPlay003a
Black to Play


I won this game,but  I missed the mate in two that was available, probably because of a lack of time ( down to about 10 seconds ).

Its both hidden, because of the knight on d4,  and obvious at the same. Any takers ?
Blacktoplay003b
Mate in 2
                                                               
 Out of interest, I used a new tool I found to write this post ‘off-line’', ie not via Blogger.


Its new, based on ( possibly , inspired by  ? ) Windows Live Writer, and just released in the last month or so.

I think its a very neat piece of software, though possibly more useful for a more text orientated blog : view it at Open Live Writer.

3 comments:

SilentKnight said...

1...nxb2 in the first problem.

I'm always looking for tactics first when heavy pieces are aligned on a file and I have a possible discovery.

Long breaks are a part of amateur chess. And as I'm coming to find out, might be a useful improvement tool.

Laurent S said...

I guess that's 1...Nxb2 and 1...Ne2+

Knights are tricky :-)

Signalman said...

Thanks for the comments... both correct !

Although I missed Nxe2+, my Qe4 was enough to provoke a resignation :)

Knights are more than tricky. Knight forks in particular are demoralising and game-winning !