11/23/25

Answer: a. hit QxNe3 b. miss Qf1


The knights only defender is the rook but can immediately be taken by my knight making a fork between king and queen. The second answer involvers tucking the queen to a safe place instead of calling a second check!

 

This is near the opening, but there is a winning move here! It looks bad but it led to a position in which I was able to checkmate my opponent several moves later! Next week's Patterns I will tell you every move in which was played to the end of the game.

My take as an under a 1200 player is that we see critical positions but sometimes fail the chess puzzle which has been given ourselves. This position in particular is as tricky as any game I've ever played. A little mistake and instead of me getting the win, I could find myself with a back rank mate myself! There were several moves following my star (best move) that I made but it did give me the opportunity to play a colorful checkmate that was not too hidden from me.

I believe in carefully considering a critical move such as this one and I did spend some time in this 15/10 game, but I still feel much consternation as a player at my skill level to still play at blitz speed because I am still prone to many mistakes. 15/10 is about as fast as I feel comfortable playing competitive chess at. I usually like to play 30 min games preferably. I would like your comments as to whether you think my great move leads to checkmate or whether you think my move selection is too risky to try. See what you think my star definitive move was!

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