Should you also have played 66…b5+ or would you have tried something like 66…a3?
Are you able to win this won game? What is Black’s next move?

Be careful. There is only one winning move and all other moves will result in a draw.


Black to move and wins.

As you can see the PGN file uses a lot of memory when compared to the SCID or ChessDB database files.

I was unable to use the large database. It started to load the games, but after waiting for more than an hour it was still busy loading.
Loading the file with the first 1000 games went raher smooth and I like the way it looks and how you can position everyting as you wish.

If you only need something like this for your own games (with a rather small database) than this may be a very interesting multi platform alternative, but for large databases it will probably not be usable. However, the next release promises to add a Native Database Format, which may solve these problems.

Classical

But there is also an indication that the sacrifice will not be sound:
- Black’s bishop on b7 may be able to defend h7

As we will see the sacrifice will be sound. Black’s bishop is rather harmless and will be attacked and undefended on e4.

A final exercise:
Is the classical bishop sacrifice sound for the following position? The answer will be given in the comments.

More chess lessons? An index of all chess lessons can be found here.

Bishops_Endgame

More chess lessons? An index of all chess lessons can be found here.

Every now and then one of our pupils turns out to be very promising. Tim was such a rather talented boy and seemed to grasp a lot of aspects of the game without even explaining them to him. He loved the game right from the start when he joined our chess club. He was almost always one of the first pupils that found the right answer to the given exercises.

But when I observed some of his first games he surprised me. He had a chance to win the game in a rather easy to see mate in two, but he just captured a pawn. Some time later he even missed a mate in one.
OK, in the end he won the game, but it surprised me that he was unable to take advantage from this kind of possibilities in his own game.
Afterwards I told him that he had missed a mate in one. He answered that he had seen it. And he also has seen some opportunities for a mate in two and a mate in three. But he also said that the game would have come to an end if he had checkmated his opponent. This should have been a pity, because there were so much pieces left on the board to capture. So he just wanted the game to continue.

I only could say he was right. He was right for the moment. It is far more important to enjoy the game in itself instead of enjoying winning a game.

Kasparovs_Immortal

More chess lessons? An index of all chess lessons can be found here.

Noahs_Trap

More chess lessons? The next lesson in this series is about the King’s Gambit.

The best option is to accept the gambit 3.dxe5 after which black probably continues with 3…d4. If White continues with 4.e3? he’ll find himself in deep trouble.

Lasker_Trap

You may also want to read the lesson about the underpromotion or about the Elephant Trap or continue with the lesson about Noah’s Ark Trap.
A complete overview of the chess lessons at this site can be found in the chess lessons index.

If you are going to learn such complicated strategy, it might as well make you some money. Use that strategic brain to make some big bucks playing online casino games at Casino Bellini!

Stalemate

You may have missed some of the previous chess lessons. The previous chess lesson was about Weak pawns, the next lesson gives an overview of the Elements in chess strategy. The index of all chess lessons can be found when pressing the lessons navigation link at the top of this site.

The following tow diagrams show two examples. In the diagram on the left promotion of the pawn to a queen will result in a stalemate, but White can win the game by promoting to a rook (or by playing Kd6). In the diagram on the right promotion to a queen or a rook will result in a draw (stalemate), but promoting to a bishop will result in an easy win. In this case White may also win by playing Ke7.

Another interesting example is shown in the next diagram. Now White is forced to promote. He has to capture the rook. Promoting to a queen or a rook will result in stalemate, so the pawn has to be promoted to a bishop or a knight.

I should go for the bishop, but promotion to a knight will be ok. 49. bxc8=B will probably be followed by something like 49… Kb8 50. Bh3 Kc7 51. Kb5 Kd6 52. a7 Ke5 53. a8=Q Kf6 54. Qf8+ Kg5 55. Be6 Kg6 56. Qe7 Kh6 57. Qf6+ Kh5 58. Qg7 Kh4 59. Qg4#

 
A rather complicated example can be found in the next diagram taken from the game Sokolsky – Ravinsky. This example has been discussed by Tim Krabbé in his article about Practical Underpromotion.

In this article he describes 47 examples of underpromotion in actual games. In the diagram on the left 66.a8=B is winning and it is White’s only winning move. The alternative moves are discussed in Tim Krabbé’s article.

 
Another interesting position that can be found in a number of actual games is the position given in the following diagram.

49.Rc8+ Rxc8 50.b7+ Ka7 will result in a position that should be familiar by now.

In this case 49.a7 is also winning
49…Kb7 50.Rc7+ Ka8 51.Ka6 1-0

 

The Lasker Trap is the next lesson in this series of chess lessons.