Tuesday, April 20, 2010

a nice analytical moment from girls nationals

Mariah McGreen had the following position as white against Isabel Gellert

What should she have played?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The following seems OK to me unless I missed something: Nxf7, Q anywhere; Nxd6 disc ch, Kh8; Nxe8

Jay said...

anonymous: why wouldn't black just take back with the knight after 1.Nxf7?

Anonymous said...

The c4-bishop is hanging, and if black captures with the knight, the d4-pawn will be pinned, so I think white has to move the bishop. Bb5 moves the bishop to a defended square and pins black's knight to her rook. If black doesn't capture or play ...a6, she can follow up with d5. If black does capture, she recaptures with the knight and now has another defender on the d4-pawn; if black plays ...a6, she retreats with Ba4 and if necessary can retreat again to Bb3, where she attacks the weak pawn and has a diagonal line to the king. So I say Bb5. Final answer.

Elizabeth Vicary said...

[Event "Girls Nationals"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2010.04.20"]
[Round "?"]
[White "McGreen, Mariah"]
[Black "Gellert, Isabel"]
[Result "*"]
[Annotator ",Microsoft"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "r2qrbk1/ppp2ppb/2nn3p/6NP/2BP1B2/2N5/PP3PP1/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "15"]
[SourceDate "2010.01.12"]

1. Nxf7 Nxf7 2. Bxf7+ Kxf7 3. Qb3+ Ke7 (3... Re6 4. d5) (3... Kf6
4. Nd5+ Kf5 5. Qh3+ Ke4 6. Rfe1+ Kxd5 7. Qb3+ Kxd4 8. Rad1+ Kc5 9. Rc1+ Kd4 10.
Qc4#) 4. Nd5+ (4. Bxc7 Qd7 5. Nd5+ Kf7 6. Nb6+) 4... Kd7 5. Qh3+ Re6 6. Nxc7
Qf6 7. d5 Qxf4 8. Nxe6 *

Check2Check said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Check2Check said...

Hey Elizabeth I just came across this hour long interview with Josh Waitzkin
here where he talks about his book "The Art of Learning" and some of the concepts relating to his experiences in chess. I found it to be very fascinating and thought you might like to see it if you haven't already -being a teacher and all.

Sorry to post this here in the comments of this blog but it's the only way I know how to reach you.