Study the Studies.4

DAY.4

WHITE TO PLAY AND DRAW.

SOLUTION: Black pawn duo are too much for white bishop duo! Hence white must use tricks to draw this position. When you see the position of white king, the first thing that must strike your mind is the possibility of stalemate. now if black were to play gh2 then white will get to move his g3 pawn and then stalemate possibilities wont remain. Hence the first and the most obvious move has to be 1.Bg1

Now time for some calculation. If 1...Kb1 then 2.Bd4 a2 3.Bb2 Kb2 and its a stalemate! So the Bishop on b1 cannot be taken. That leaves us with only 1 move. 1...a2

(W)

Now the threat is ab1=Q and hence we will have to move the B. Lets choose a random square say 2.Be4 now 2...b1=Q 3.Bd4 Qb2 and if now queen is taken then the 'a' pawn will queen and white will not be stalemated because he will be left with a B on e4. So its for sure that we are going to be left with a light squared Bishop. So how can we incapacitate it? Its only after such thoughts cross your mind that you come to the conclusion of 2.Bh7!! b1=Q 3.Bd4 Qb2 and now for the grand finale stroke....

(W)

4.Bh8!! black has nothing better than 4...Qh8 and yes you guessed it right! Its a stalemate!!

Conclusion: I think the toughest part of this problem was the move or rather the idea of Bh7!! Well one thing is certain if you solve such studies, you can definitely become more resourceful in your games and unusual ideas like these wont seem unusual any more!!

Study the Studies.3

DAY.3
Dear Chess lover! welcome back on day 3! i call you a chess lover because you resisted the temptation to enter facebook.com or yahoo.com in your address bar and instead came to this boring site to rack your brains to solve another study! Thank you very much! So what do we have today?! Todays composition is a game like situation! So be sure to give your 100%! because such a position might just occur in your game!

WHITE TO PLAY AND WIN.

SOLUTION:

As is usual , we start with the most obvious line of play 1.ab7 doesnt work due to 1...Bf8 2.Kc6 Bd6 3.Bg4 Ke7=. Once this is established we realise that the black king controlling d6 square is very important. So we try to deflect the black king with 1.d4+ As we see there are 4 squares where black king can go to. 1...Kf5 and 1...Kf6 can be dismissed as the black king doesnt control d6 square and after 2.ab7 Bf8 3.Kc6 black has no way to stop the pawn. 1...Ke6 is a better try. However after 2.Bg4+! black has only move 2..f5 3.Bf5+- and surprisingly black has no good square to go to and white wins.

Through this logical deduction we realise that after 1.d4 Ke4! is the best move. Now starts the difficult part.

(W)

When the King comes to e4, you must make a mental note that any check on the b1-h7 diagonal by the B will result in a mate! 

2.d3 seems like a try. Now black has to stay in touch with d4 pawn. So 2...Kd3 3.ab7 Bd4 4.Kd6 is met by a simple move 4...f6! and black is able to save himself!(maybe even win!) infact after seeing the above variation i thought the f6 move is very important and hence came up with 2.Bg6!!(??) i thought it was a brilliant idea deflecting the f pawn but infact it was a losing move. 2...fg6 3.d3 Kd3! 4.ab7 Bd4 5.Kd6 and now brimming with happiness i said to myself f6 is not possible! what a genius i was!! But after the simple 5...Ke4 the work done by pawn on f6 is done by the K on e4!

So after the brief distraction and realising that 2.d3 doesnt work, we set our eyes on 2.Bf3 Kd3

(W)

 3.Be2!! the most important move! and you can find this if you were saying to youself that the black king sould not leave the control of the d4 square. 3...Ke4 is again forced and now after 4.ab7 Bd4 5.Kc4 Be5, the mental note that we had made above comes in handy and 6.Bd3#

 is one of the most picturesque mates i have ever seen!! 

Conclusion: What was the best thing about this position was that it had normal material balance. I mean it could very well occur in your game too! and important was to first realise through accurate calculation of variations that Ke4 was the only move. And then of course Be2 was the brilliant part of the problem but it was not tough if you had in mind that black king was low on space and that mating him was possible!

All in all i love this study a lot!

Study the Studies.2

DAY.2
Congratulations! You are now on day 2! it means that you tried to solve the study on day 1! So give your best today too! your efforts wont go waste!

WHITE TO PLAY AND WIN.

SOLUTION:   First we look at natural moves. Re4 and Re8 both captures lose to cd2. Hence it is forced to start of with 1.d7+! Kd7 and now we take 2.Re4 The subtle point being that now 2...cd2 gives us a simple win with 3.Rd4+ King moves and Rd3 and white wins. So is it so simple after 2.Re4. How about trying to help black a little?

(B)

A shrewd defender will note that black has a small trick up his sleeve with 2..Bg6!! 3.Kg6 cd2 white is anyway foced now to give a check with 4.Rd4 Ke8! and i hope you had seen this defense where after 5.Rd3 its Stalemate!! So now after4..Ke8 its time for white to show his brilliance! What will you do?

(W)

Time to put your thinking hat on. this is the most beuatiful part and give a pat to yourslef if you found this move! 5.Be7!! you need to really be alert for mating patterns if you have to find this move! now if the black king takes the B on e7 then Rd3 wins. so black is forced to play 5...d1=Q and now after 6.Bg5!

Believe it or not nothing in this world can stop Rd8#!! A grandiose solution!

Conclusion: What i love about this study is the very clever defensive attempt by black which you must anticipate and then the brilliant retort Be7!! forming the amazing mating pattern.
All in all these 6 moves are so powerpacked that they can make any solver feel really happy!!

Study the Studies.1

DAY. 1

WHITE TO PLAY AND DRAW.

SOLUTION
It seems as though whites days are numbered. The B on f3 is controlling the a pawn excellently and the black king is ready to capture the h pawn and roll down his own pawn. In such a scenario, how do we begin our calculation?
We begin with the most natural move in the position. It would be incorrect to start with exotic ideas because we first need to knw why our normal moves dont work. So the most obvious moves is 1.Kb5 Kh2 2.Ka6 Kg1 of course this is the best place to remove the black king. 3.b5 h3 4.b6 h2 5.b7 Bb7 6.Kb7 h1=Q

(W)

Now if you know that a lone 'a' pawn on 7th rank draws against the queen, you will definitely try 7.f3 but if black isnt your friend then he will spurn this juicy pawn and continue with 7...Qh7-+ afer which you would have hoped that the treacherous f3 pawn never existed!
So we realise that f pawn is a main problem and we must force black to take it. how can it be possible? only if f3 comes with a check! and how can it come with a check? only if black king is on g4! and thus from the start we get the idea of
1. h3!! Kh2 2.Kb5 Kh3 3.Ka6 Kg4 (this is the only way. Kg2 would block the queens check.) 4.b5 h3 5.b6 h2 6.b7 Bb7 7.Kb7 h1=Q+

(W)

 So whats the huge difference from the last diagram here? well as you can see the f pawn now moves ahead with the threat to kill the black king 8. f3!! Qf3 9.Kb8 and as we all know this is a theoretical draw!

Conclusion:
As you see a position, it is very necessary that you start your calculations from the most obvious move. Once you realise what is the problem with normal play, then you can improvise and only then find the first move h3!!. If you started your calculation with directly h3 then your approach isnt correct!