Only use an Engine if you can NOT solve it !

[kiroje]

Most players even 1900 USCF players have problem with simple tactics , and they have read dozens of Opening Books probably a few middlegames books and a few books on strategies and a few books on endgames, but are NOT well prepared with Tactics when it present itself in front of their Eyes playing actual games. Sunday I went to a local Chess club and saw this position when I saw two players playing game in 10+5", but the player playing white still had 4.5 minutes on his clock and he is rated 1921. He missed this golden opportunity to come ahead and played a stupid move. Please it is too easy to get any engine rated above 2100 and find the correct move, actually there are two great moves, please for any rated player between 1800 to 1950 please provide your two great White moves, this should NOT take you more than 15 seconds to figured out, for each of the two great moves that you can make

[d]3r2k1/pp1q1pp1/2pr3p/6bQ/3P4/1BP2P2/P3R1PP/4R1K1 w - - 0 1

There is at least a pawn hanging with Bxf7, Qxf7 fails to Re8 as far as I can see

[Chessqueen]

I mean look Magnus Carlsen, by far the strongest player ever created by planet earth actually missed a completely winning simple tactic here. The thing is that MC was not the only strong player to miss it .. Aronian also missed it!

MC actually played Rxd4 ??? and ended up drawing the game.

[d]8/8/8/1R1pk1p1/3r4/P2R1P1r/1PK5/8 w - - 0 0
But with your position, there is NO tactical shot, all that is required is to know what piece to move or take with, Black simply has to play Rxd3 and Black is winning immediately

No. It's White to play. f4+ wins.

Of course if it is White to move f4+ is an easy move to find, but it is just a single winning move NOT a tactical sequence of forced moves which are much much harder.

Yesterday my online trainer had me playing versus a 1935 Blitz player from India and we we reached this position with only 40 seconds left on my clock and he had 57 seconds left on his computer, which is plenty of time time to finish me off plus his position was much better. I was playing with the Black pieces and since I am NOT to used to play Blitz 5+1" my position was horrible with the Black position with NO pawns in front of my King to protect me, my position was very open and exposed, but he got careless specially after I saw a beautiful tactical Combo (Win or die move) which gave me the only and since he was feeling over confident he chose the worse reply to my desperate last move. I was actually looking at this move for the last of my two moves and calculating to see if he would place his Rook on d3 and he did, since his next move seems very logical to give me check with his Rook on h3+ which was the moment that I was waiting for. See if you can find that fantastic tactical combination move Please do NOT use any engine above 2100 since if you take at least 10 seconds you should be able to calculate at least 5 forced tactical moves if you are at least 1850

[d]7k/pb3q2/1p3p2/2prp1p1/6P1/1P1R4/PQ3PP1/1B5K b - - 0 1

Qh7+ Kg1 (Rh3 Qxh3+ and Rd2+ and takes the queen) Rxd3 Qc2 Qe4 looks good. NOT really look at the continuation. Qh7+ Kg1 RxR if BxR then QxB and if Qe2 then My Next move was Qe4!



The actual game went like this Qh7+ and he was overconfident and he played( Rh3 ? big blunder under time pressure a better Move was to trade Rook at d5) anyway after Rh3? thinking he pinned my Queen, I gave him the BLOW and surprising move Rd1+ he moved his King to h2, So after I checked him with Rh1+ he did NOT take my Rook since his King was going to be pinned with my Bishop and I could just take his Rook QxRh3+ and Check mate Next, So he moved his King to Kg3 and I checked him Qh4+ after he took my Queen I check mated him with my Pawn pxRh4++

[Collingwood]

I mean look Magnus Carlsen, by far the strongest player ever created by planet earth actually missed a completely winning simple tactic here. The thing is that MC was not the only strong player to miss it .. Aronian also missed it!

MC actually played Rxd4 ??? and ended up drawing the game.

[d]8/8/8/1R1pk1p1/3r4/P2R1P1r/1PK5/8 w - - 0 0
But with your position, there is NO tactical shot, all that is required is to know what piece to move or take with, Black simply has to play Rxd3 and Black is winning immediately

No. It's White to play. f4+ wins.

Of course if it is White to move f4+ is an easy move to find, but it is just a single winning move NOT a tactical sequence of forced moves which are much much harder.

Well, that's M ANSARI's point, that this was easy and missed by extremely strong players, though you'd guess there was severe time pressure (blitz?). It's also clearly indicated in the diagram whose move it is.

[M ANSARI]

Never mind it seems to have been a glitch, I see it now on b3 ... somehow it did not show without several page refreshes. This is a simple tactic and would rate around 1400 to 1500 ELO on the chess.com tactics trainer as the pattern is very obvious. I think this type of tactic is never missed by any reasonably strong player even at bullet, but that doesn't mean that it can't be missed sometimes by even the top GM on earth . Chess blindness can sometimes be incredible ... I mean look Magnus Carlsen, by far the strongest player ever created by planet earth actually missed a completely winning simple tactic here. The thing is that MC was not the only strong player to miss it .. Aronian also missed it!

MC actually played Rxd4 ??? and ended up drawing the game.

[d]3r2k1/pp1q1pp1/2pr3p/6bQ/3P4/1BP2P2/P3R1PP/4R1K1 w - - 0 1
I Just gave it to few of the players that I know on chess.com who are rated average around 1850 and told them to solve it by using a chess clock with 30 seconds, out of 10 players only 2 solved it without using any engine , but you simply did not see it until you used your engine, since this position has been here for at least 8 hours, which does NOT need page refreshes, anyway since only two who tried to solve it honestly and solved it, tell me that this tactical puzzle is rated for club players around 1850 to 1950.

[d]8/8/8/1R1pk1p1/3r4/P2R1P1r/1PK5/8 w - - 0 0
But with your position, there is NO tactical shot, all that is required is to know what piece to move or take with, Black simply has to play Rxd3 and Black is winning immediately

I am sorry but this if this was a puzzle on chess.com I am sure it would not get a rating about 1400 to 1500 elo. The pattern is very obvious and the sequence is a forced sequence ... which is extremely easy to find. No need for computer here and I really would doubt that a 1800 player who you give this puzzle to cannot find it in 10 seconds or less.

With regards to the other position that both MC and Aronian missed the winning move is f4+ ... that would rate around 1200 ELO on a Chess.com puzzle. The point there was to show that this type of chess blindness happens very often. I actually remember watching live Kramink lose to a mate in one at CLASSIC TIME CONTROLS against Fritz in Bahrain after quite a long think. This was a Kramnik at full form who had beaten Garry Kasparov. So it can happen to the very best players on earth. By the way if you couldn't see that f4+ wins then obviously you need a lot more tactical training. I highly recommend the training tactics on Chess.com as it will tailor to your strength and will drop down the strength of the puzzles if you don't do well and increase the strength as you get better.

[M ANSARI]

Here is a typical chess.com puzzle with a 1874 rating and a 24 second time allocation to solve. Don't use an engine, just try and solve it without help and try and do it in 24 seconds. Black to play and win. This is many times tougher to solve than the simple tactic that was put up and that only 2 out of 10 players rated around 1900 ELO managed to solve.

[d]5rk1/1p5p/p2p2p1/3P4/2P1P3/6qP/3Q2pR/R5K1 b - - 0 1

One thing to note, a puzzle is much easier to solve if you "know" there is a solution. Many times while playing, you don't have information that there is something to "look" for and you tend to just feel that there is a tactical shot somewhere and then you look for it. Things are much much easier if you are given a puzzle and told to find the win or draw.

[Chessqueen]

Here is a typical chess.com puzzle with a 1874 rating and a 24 second time allocation to solve. Don't use an engine, just try and solve it without help and try and do it in 24 seconds. Black to play and win. This is many times tougher to solve than the simple tactic that was put up and that only 2 out of 10 players rated around 1900 ELO managed to solve.

[d]5rk1/1p5p/p2p2p1/3P4/2P1P3/6qP/3Q2pR/R5K1 b - - 0 1

One thing to note, a puzzle is much easier to solve if you "know" there is a solution. Many times while playing, you don't have information that there is something to "look" for and you tend to just feel that there is a tactical shot somewhere and then you look for it. Things are much much easier if you are given a puzzle and told to find the win or draw.

That is true but my online trainer for over 13 months always always tell us that in every chess game specially in Blitz less then 10+3" there will be tactical shot that the Opponent will offer due to time pressure, and if you are losing like on my case when you have less than 2 minutes on your clock to be looking for tactical shots, like I said I was losing with my King naked and I knew that my opponent was better than me playing Blitz since he has a standard rating of 1935 but a Blitz rating of 2135. So I starting imagining what would be the ideal position for me to tent him to Blunder, I was thinking he might later place he Rook on d3 and since my Bishop is pointing down on g2 I could try to Check him with my Queen he will be very low on time and when he finally got down with less than 1 minute on his clock with the Rook Just on the perfect spot I temped him by giving him Check which at that time he was overconfident winning on time and with a better position, he took the Bait and Lost

[d]7k/pb3q2/1p3p2/2prp1p1/6P1/1P1R4/PQ3PP1/1B5K b - - 0 1
[/quote]

Qh7+ Kg1 (Rh3 Qxh3+ and Rd2+ and takes the queen) Rxd3 Qc2 Qe4 looks good. NOT really look at the continuation. Qh7+ Kg1 RxR if BxR then QxB and if Qe2 then My Next move was Qe4!


The actual game went like this Qh7+ and he was overconfident and he played( Rh3 ? big blunder under time pressure a better Move was to trade Rook at d5) anyway after Rh3? thinking he pinned my Queen, I gave him the BLOW and surprising move Rd1+ he moved his King to h2, So after I checked him with Rh1+ he did NOT take my Rook since his King was going to be pinned with my Bishop and I could just take his Rook QxRh3+ and Check mate Next, So he moved his King to Kg3 and I checked him Qh4+ after he took my Queen I check mated him with my Pawn pxRh4++

[Metaphysician]

In the last position simply ...Qh7+ wins on the spot, because the rook on d3 falls.

[Chessqueen]

In the last position simply ...Qh7+ wins on the spot, because the rook on d3 falls.

[d]7k/pb3q2/1p3p2/2prp1p1/6P1/1P1R4/PQ3PP1/1B5K b - - 0 1

Qh7+ Kg1 (Rh3 Qxh3+ and Rd2+ and takes the queen) Rxd3 Qc2 Qe4 looks good. NOT really look at the continuation. Qh7+ Kg1 RxR if BxR then QxB and if Qe2 then My Next move was Qe4!


The actual game went like this Qh7+ and he was overconfident and he played( Rh3 ? big blunder under time pressure a better Move was to trade Rook at d5) anyway after Rh3? thinking he pinned my Queen, I gave him the BLOW and surprising move Rd1+ he moved his King to h2, So after I checked him with Rh1+ he did NOT take my Rook since his King was going to be pinned with my Bishop and I could just take his Rook QxRh3+ and Check mate Next, So he moved his King to Kg3 and I checked him Qh4+ after he took my Queen I check mated him with my Pawn pxRh4++

It does NOT fall automatically that is why he had to place his Rook on h3 to stop the Check and to prevent losing the Bishop, to me it seems that you did NOT placed this position on a board and analyzed it. I did provided all the different variation and possible best defense. What I did posted was the fact the he should have traded the Rook before he placed it on d3 which was a positional mistake before explore the tactical sequence.Look at is carefully and go thru every possible variation that I provided here.

[Chessqueen]

Here is a typical chess.com puzzle with a 1874 rating and a 24 second time allocation to solve. Don't use an engine, just try and solve it without help and try and do it in 24 seconds. Black to play and win. This is many times tougher to solve than the simple tactic that was put up and that only 2 out of 10 players rated around 1900 ELO managed to solve.

[d]5rk1/1p5p/p2p2p1/3P4/2P1P3/6qP/3Q2pR/R5K1 b - - 0 1

One thing to note, a puzzle is much easier to solve if you "know" there is a solution. Many times while playing, you don't have information that there is something to "look" for and you tend to just feel that there is a tactical shot somewhere and then you look for it. Things are much much easier if you are given a puzzle and told to find the win or draw.

That is true but my online trainer for over 13 months always always tell us that in every chess game specially in Blitz less then 10+3" there will be tactical shot that the Opponent will offer due to time pressure, and if you are losing like on my case when you have less than 2 minutes on your clock to be looking for tactical shots, like I said I was losing with my King naked and I knew that my opponent was better than me playing Blitz since he has a standard rating of 1935 but a Blitz rating of 2135. So I starting imagining what would be the ideal position for me to tent him to Blunder, I was thinking he might later place he Rook on d3 and since my Bishop is pointing down on g2 I could try to Check him with my Queen he will be very low on time and when he finally got down with less than 1 minute on his clock with the Rook Just on the perfect spot I temped him by giving him Check which at that time he was overconfident winning on time and with a better position, he took the Bait and Lost

[d]7k/pb3q2/1p3p2/2prp1p1/6P1/1P1R4/PQ3PP1/1B5K b - - 0 1

Qh7+ Kg1 (Rh3 Qxh3+ and Rd2+ and takes the queen) Rxd3 Qc2 Qe4 looks good. NOT really look at the continuation. Qh7+ Kg1 RxR if BxR then QxB and if Qe2 then My Next move was Qe4!


The actual game went like this Qh7+ and he was overconfident and he played( Rh3 ? big blunder under time pressure a better Move was to trade Rook at d5) anyway after Rh3? thinking he pinned my Queen, I gave him the BLOW and surprising move Rd1+ he moved his King to h2, So after I checked him with Rh1+ he did NOT take my Rook since his King was going to be pinned with my Bishop and I could just take his Rook QxRh3+ and Check mate Next, So he moved his King to Kg3 and I checked him Qh4+ after he took my Queen I check mated him with my Pawn pxRh4++
[/quote]

[MonteCarlo]

What a fascinating coincidence.....