Guards ! Guards !

My chess brain still manages to avoid seeing some things, particularly involving Knights..

Below, I saw the threat of a draw from White, and the fact the knight could stop it ( and therefore noted that the knight could not move, unless it gave check ).

What I did not see was that the Knight giving check and being captured, allowed the discovered attack on the Rook capture and subsequent mate...problem solved, if I had but seen it !

Black to play

The best of a choice of good moves

This problem was one I "failed", although in this case it would not have meant disaster or losing in a real game, but rather not finishing the game as fast as you should.

Here, the correct move is actually the choice of the best of a number of good moves, and that makes it harder.

White to play

The endgame...just calculation

I think it was a Daniel King video I watched where he said that the endgame in chess was just calculation, especially when down to a small number of pieces on the board.

He showed how it was done, introduced endgame studies, and how they could help improve both endgame understanding and calculation.

This isn't a study, but it is a very simple problem, as long as you just think it through.

White to move after Ne5-f3