Summer talk: Chess Puzzles

Yesterday Richard Webb gave a very entertaining talk, going through a number of endgame puzzles. The puzzles were all spectacular, often humorous and, of course, difficult to solve.

As a taster, here is one of the puzzles that Richard presented, a 1922 composition by Kubbel. White to play and win. Expand the “Spoiler” below to see the solution:

Spoiler

The main line of the solution is:

1 Nc6 in order to meet 1…a2 with 2 Nb4+
1 ….Kxc6
2 Bf6 threatening Bxd4, controlling the queening square a1
2 …. Kd5 if 2 …Kc5 3 Be7+ wins the a3 pawn
3 d3!! a2
4 c4+ Kc5
5 Kb7 a1=Q
6 Be7 amazingly, this is checkmate!

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