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White to Play

Pete Tamburro on Jan 13, 2025

This is a very instructive position I found in Joel Johnson’s book “Formation Attacks”—a real classic of a book. The attack here combines several themes into one assault and well worth playing over.

The game was between Pedram Atoufi and David Adelberg in the Arizona State Championship, 2009 1.Rxf6! gxf6 1…Bxf6 would lose the pawn on b6, then the knight 2.Bh6 f5 3.Ra3 f4 4.Qd4 f6 5.Qxf4 e5 6.Qg3+ Kh8 7.Bxf8 b5 If 7...Qd7 8.Nf5 leads to mate. Work it out--5 moves. 8.Nc5 8.Bh5 would have been more precise. The aim is the same--block the queen's defense of g7. 8...Nc6 9.Ncb7 9.Ndb7 also works quite well, too. Black Resigned as the queen is blocked from g7.

Send questions and comments to PTamburro@aol.com.

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