ArcaMax

In a seemingly secure position, Black will be convinced to resign in two moves.

Won by Geller in 1962.

Mating Attack.

The legendary David Bronstein always came up with wild moves when needed.

A great Memorial Day weekend puzzle. You have a chance to outthink a genius! At Moscow in 1957, arguably the most dangerous attacking player in chess history, Mikhail Tal, missed a win in this position against Antoshin and only drew the game.

This one’s a dandy. Fun king hunt.

White found a unique way to use the threat of a back rank mate in this game which was played in the USSR in 1946. I’ll bet they were happy just to be playing chess after years of war.

Today is do better than Boris day. In this position at Baku in 1961, he did find a winning continuation, but he overlooked a mating attack. Can you do better?

GM Levon Aronian won the recent American Cup in St. Louis with terrific fighting play—and a little luck! In one game, his opponent, Sam Sevian, reached this position and missed a winning continuation. Aronian had missed it, to, obviously. Aronian would go on to win the game. Can you find what two elite GMs missed?

This is one of those positions you probably won’t be able to figure out; HOWEVER, if you want to get better, set up the position on a board, look at the answer, then cover the answer and try to imagine how to do it over the board you’ve set up. Excellent training.

Chess Tricks, Part III.

Chess Tricks, Part II Black went Nh5 to threaten to take the bishop, but White had a trick up his sleeve.

I was looking through my first chess book (The Game of Chess by Golombek)and found a section on “tricks.” We’ll do some tricks this week. Here, Black surprised White in what seemed like a stable position.

OK, suitable for a weekend puzzle, this is a long sequence with a central theme of attacking along the diagonal from a2-g8. See if you can work it out all the way to mate at the end.

A finish from former world champ Anand.

Won by Vorotnikov in 1974.

Here’s a game I played on the Internet Chess Club this morning. I played an opening system I mentioned in my Openings for Amateurs books and have played hundreds of games with this line. It started out like this: ptamburro(a) - guest [C41] ICC Internet Chess Club, 2024 (10 minute game). 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Be7 6.g3 Bd7...

This game was won by Dennis Waterman in 1974 out California way in a tournament at the legendary Mechanics Institute in San Francisco.

A neat endgame win by Ivanchuk.

No more castling problems, but I was intrigued with G.F. Anderson’s work with the April 15th puzzle. Here’s one he did with C.C. Palmer. A mate in two.