Puzzles, Chess News! and Good Advice.

Picked up this for a couple of quid. (a quid is street slang for £1.00)


515 puzzles in three groups of Easy, Medium and Hard. They are selected
positions mostly from games played on the internet so most will be unknown.



A couple of easy ones from the couple of quid book (White to play)


Reveal Hidden Content

Another one from the easy section. (White to play)


Clue Reveal Hidden Content
Solution Reveal Hidden Content

The final and third puzzle is from a Red Hot Pawn game.
barefootlarry - sbelanoff RHP.2016 (Black to play and win)


Reveal Hidden Content


Anish Giri and Matthias Bluebaum have both qualified for 2026 candidates
via the Fide Grand Swiss. Anish won the tournament outright with 8pts. from
11 games. Bluebaum tied with Firouzja and Keymer on 7½ pts but came 2nd
under the tie break rule of having played, on average, the highest rated players.
The tie break scores were; Bluebaum 2696, Firouzja 2684 and Keymer 2668.

The date and venue where the 2026 candidates will take place is still to be decided.
( Perhaps Russ should put a bid in and they can play it online at Red Hot Pawn. )

The Line up so far is Caruana, Giri and Bluebaum. Pragg is a cert to qualify vie
the Grand Prix. Nakamura is the favourite and on course for the highest rating spot.
The final three places will come from the World Cup being held next month in Goa.

So let’s look at a couple of moments from the 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss.

A. Liang - N. Theodorou, Fide Grand Swiss Uzbekistan 2025

White, apparently for a laugh, under promoted for a Bishop mate.


43. h8=B mate.

I like our own under promotion Bishop mate better FianchettoTHIS - Radon, RHP 2011


53. c8=B mate.

Heartbreaks galore in this event but the headliner was in Round 10.

V. Keymer - M. Bluebaum, Grand Swiss Uzbekistan 2025
A win and Keymer is hot favourite to win this event.


White is winning. 54.Ne4 Re2 55. Ng5+ and Kf1 when White can manoeuvre
around to pick up the lone h-pawn. (or so I’ve been told, it still looks like hard
work to me.) but all the Engines and GM’s think the win is just simple routine.

White played 54. Rh7? Nxg3! and the game was agreed drawn a few moves later.
55. Nb1 Rb2 etc. Nothing routine in the RHP example. A straight forward blunder.

HowardMordont - Rallef RHP 2025 (Black to play)


We are at our most vulnerable when playing what we perceive as the winning move.
(see above, Keymer possibly expected his opponent to resign after playing 54.Rh7.)


White has one threat. 49.Ne4+ and Nxg3 a draw. All Black need do is
to play 48...Nc3 and the g-pawn promotes. Black spotted the threat but
not the main idea. 48...g2 49.Ne4+ Kf3 50 Ng5+ Kf2 51.Ne4+ Kf3 52.Ng5+

Be careful playing that wining move, the brain goes foggy when you have notched
up a win in your mind and in desperation your losing opponent will spot your blunder.

The thread accompanying this blog is Thread 203570