Position of the Day.18th Feb.

Black to play.

SOLUTION.

Position taken from: Practical Chess Defense by Jacob Aagaard.

Opponents: Kobese-Areschenko.

Alexander Areschenko is a tremendously talented player from Ukraine. He has won a lot of International tournaments in India, the most recent being Parsvnath 2011.

Here he is a rook down and his king's clothes are shredded to pieces. It remains to see if areschenko is able to find that one beautiful idea which i have to admit is really amazing!

1...Qd5+ 2 b3 (white has to make this move if he wants to make progress) 2...Qc5!!! This move is simply mind blowing. Black is a rook down, his king is in the open and here he is just making a move which improves the position of his queen and throws the ball in white's court!

This move looks very hard to understand but when you look logically, you see that

1. the white queen is tied to its rook.So the queen cant do much.

2.The white rook on its own cant do much damage.

3. The queen on c5 covers all of rook checking squares.

4. from c5 now black queen is threatening to take c2 and give perpetual.

Its white's move now but he cant do anything.

3.Ka1 (3.Kb2 Qd4! {and not3...Qc3 as then after 4.Kb1 Qe1 5.Ka2 black is lost.} 3....Qg1 4.Kb2 Qd4 5.Ka2 Qc5

And its draw!

And miraculously its a draw! What a wonderful defensive idea by Areschenko!

Moral: No matter how bad your position is and how strong your opponent is, never lose hope!