Brilliants from ACF National 2006

[Alex_Moiseyev]

See diagram. In this position Richard Beckwith played 23-26? and lost after 17-13 26-30 9-6 xxxx 8-11 6-2 30-26 5-1 WW. Instead losing 23-26, the brilliant second man pitch 23-27** would survive ! WOW !

R. Beckwith vs R. King,
Round 4, Game 1

Red to move and draw

[Ingo_Zachos]

Is it so surprising ?
Black has a tremendous positional advantage, so there must be something around the corner...

And that leads us to the solution, Alex:

It is all hidden "behind the (double) corner".

No wonder you liked it a lot !


You have to invest further material to promote at the square where the king has least mobility.
Isn't that showing that mobility is not everything in the game of checkers ?
Sometimes to have targets is even more important.
And by sacrifizing his free pawn black gets more then one target.
To me it is more surprising, or shall I say : disappointing, that white still has a draw (
Maybe we should give a win on points to those who sacrifice but only get a draw, just to boost beauty and romance in this game

Greetinx from hot, but stormy Europe,

Ingo

[Alex_Moiseyev]

Ingo, there are at least two "beauties" in this position - red draw ater 23-27 and ... white win after 23-26. In fact, the second beauity is very important, if such outstanding player as Richard didn't see a win for white.

I am very confident, if white win after 23-26 would be more obvious, Richard would pay more attention on other moves.

Due to specific configuaration - white "disadvantage" in this positon not so big due to "the permanent" trade on 6.

As annotator I am trying to pick everything interesting, and this "missing" among two strong players grab my attention. This is just an example - what Masters can miss.

Alex

[AKA]

Ingo always has some negative critisism for everything posted here.

[rich beckwith]

Yeah,

I also discovererd the 2nd-man-down idea too after I got home and analyzed the game. Unfortunately, I was in real time trouble when the actual game the was played, and just immediately moved 23-26 without any thinking. With more time, it wouldn't have taken much effort to realize 23-26 goes nowhere and that alternatives such as 23-27 should be tried instead.

[matthewkooshad]

Thanks for sharing the position. That is a neat one.