We received a very welcomed letter from Rey Tamayo of Miami. He has an interesting take on our chess positions that teach practical lessons:

Dear Pete:

I hate these new types of problems you are giving even if they are good for me lol. But I am glad you are giving them because:

1) They are teaching me more on how to think in chess

2) They are showing me how much you have already taught me!

I wanted to thank you for all that you have taught me beyond just having fun with chess problems. I got all moves you said today and I would have done the best one myself. You have taught me to analyze better, you have taught me to be more aggressive, you have taught me to think faster by having a checklist of things to do when analyzing the position, among many other things. So I wanted to thank you for that. I still hate this last set of problems but I am grateful for them. The irony (me hating these) on all of this is that this is the kind of thing I have been trying to encourage you to do since I started writing to you and today I realized that I have learned and I may hate to think but man, it is cool to have the right answers and to appreciate chess in a different way. Keep this "teaching" with problems going as I am sure I am not the only one that needs and appreciates what you have to teach!

Regards,
Rey Tamayo

Good attitude! We'll do these for a while before we drift back to other forms of problems. Today's challenge involves a theme we constantly talk about when a king isn't castled: attacking f7 (or f2 for White).Every experienced chess player would look at this position and ask himself, "I know f7 looks weak, but how can I calculate it out to a forced win?" Remember the one big hint I always give!

Solution:

Being a Monday morning, we gave you two options...if you remembered to look at all checks and captures, you saw several ways to mate: 1.Qxf7+ Nxf7 2.Nf6+ gxf6 3.Bxf7# or 1.Nf6+ gxf6 2.Qxf7+ Nxf7 3.Bxf7# It's the same idea. The Black king is boxed in with no flight squares and only one other piece defending f7. What you had to see was that while Black had two pieces defending f7, you had three attacking f7! Two directly and one indirectly The sacrifices just cleared the way. Either way!

Send questions and comments to @aol.com">PTamburro@aol.com.