White to Play and Mate

Pete Tamburro on Sep 28, 2009

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Here we have a former U.S. champion, Nick de Firmian, take apart a world class grandmaster, Robert Hubner, at Polanica Zdroj in 1995. You've seen enough kingside mating attacks in this column to have a clue about what you should do. Let's see if you can solve the mystery. BTW, our consolation prize winner, whose first name was all we had, is Nathan Morris of Kapaau, Hawaii. He'll be receiving my book for having the only other completely correct solution.

Solution:

The game up to the diagram went like this: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4 c5 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.Be3 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Qb6 9.Qd2 Qxb2 10.Rb1 Qa3 11.Bb5 Nxd4 12.Bxd4 Bb4 13.Rb3 Qa5 14.a3 Be7 15.f5 exf5 16.Nxd5 Bh4+ 17.Kd1 Qd8 18.Nf6+ gxf6 19.exf6 0–0

DeFirmian played 20.Rg3+ with the following possibilities that could occur:

20.Rg3+ Kh8 [ The whole idea is that the bishop should be guarding the g5 square: 20...Bxg3 21.Qg5+ Kh8 22.Qg7#] 21.Qh6 Rg8 [21...Bxf6 22.Rg7 (or the spectacular looking 22.Qg7+ Bxg7 23.Bxg7+ Kg8 24.Bf6#; The prosaic 22.Rh3 works, too. And mate next move.)] 22.Rg7 Nf8 23.Rxg8+ Kxg8 24.Qg7#

Send questions and comments to PTamburro@aol.com.