The Answer Key to Study Group Tactics #1:
A1. 1.Rh8+ Kg7 (forced, otherwise Nf6+ wins) 2.Rg8+! Kxg8 3.Nf6+ wins the queen.
A2. 1.Qxc7+! (must be played. Taking the rook on f6 leads to mate after 1.Rf6 Qc1+) Kxc7 2.Nd5+ wins the rook.
A3. 1.Nd6+! (cleverly exploiting the trapped king along with the pin to the queen on the diagonal.) wins the queen.
A4. Only one move achieves the checkmate. 1.Ng6+!! hxg6 2.hxg3#
A5. 1.c7! Rd6+ 2.Kb5! (the key idea, other moves, 2.Kc5?! Rd1! with the idea of Rc1+ and 2.Ka5?? Rc6 will capture the pawn. Same with 2.Ka7 Rc6 and 2.Kb7 Rd7 leads to a draw.) Rd5+ 3.Kb4 Rd4+ 4.Kb3 Rd3+ 5.Kc2 Rc4! The last trap. 6.c8=R (If you promote to a queen, then 6.c8=Q Rc4+ 7.Qxc4 is stalemate. Your opponent would get half the point instead of 0 points). After 6.c8, now the only way black can prevent checkmate is to play 6…Ra4, stopping Ra8#. However, now white has one final shot, 7.Kb3! leading to a double attack attacking both the rook and threatening checkmate on c1.
A6. This is a Pawn Mower puzzle, the objective is to capture all the pawns on the board consecutively. Every move is a capture. It will take several tries to do this, but eventually you will realise a couple of key pawns must be captured in a very key sequence. The answer is: Bxa3,e7,f6,d8,b6,a7,f2,h4,g5 and finally d2.
Hope you enjoyed those puzzles! See you in the next puzzles.
♡ from the ilovechess.net team.