A Comedian and an Unheard Melody

I did an interview for Chess magazine with Kevin James Doyle whose one
man comedy show ‘After Endgame’ is currently on at the Edinburgh Fringe.


I saw the show and it was very good. You know me....If I thought it was
naff then I would say so. - in fact you would not see it mentioned here.
Instead you would be looking at one of my naff cartoons for an opener.

If you see it anywhere then go 100% recommended. A funny guy with a
good delivery and enjoys what he is doing and there is loads of chess in it.


I’m in a good mood this week so I’ll start you off with a piece of work
I picked up from a Victorian Chess Column. I got it on the first guess.


White to play and mate in two moves. (you get two guesses.)
Solution Reveal Hidden Content

Next, try to do this one in your mind. White to play and win.

I’ll give you for free the first move because I’m a nice guy. 1. Ke7.

But now when you visualise and count the pawn moves you will soon realise that
when you promote on d8 Black will promote on the very next move. So you have
to work out the trick that enables a White win for what ever Black pawn promotes.
The a-pawn is easy. But you need to see six moves ahead for the other two pawns.

This next one is by Berthold Lasker and here we see the trouble with having a
more famous brother. This problem is often attributed to Dr. Emanuel Lasker.


White to play and checkmate in five moves (so stop looking at 1.Qxc2)
Clue: Reveal Hidden Content
(And yes I have been guilty in the past of crediting this to Emanuel Lasker.)


In the recent British Championship the female G.M. Katarzyna
Toma allowed a draw under the 50 move rule from this position.


Even though she had more than 30 minutes left on her clock.

It is something you learn as a junior and then forget. (except me I
learned it and forgot it as an adult!) Katarzyna let her opponent’s
King reach one of best defensive corners, in this case with a dark
squared Bishop, a8 or h1 and failed to dig the King out of a1.

We look at the game from here (Black has just played 82...Kh1)


By now White has 31 of the 50 moves left to mate the Black King.

It is not easy, a few very good players, GM’s included have failed to find the mate.
Consider the fact it appears after a long and tiring game and there is a clock ticking.

There is a third factor - the board is ‘upside down’ to the way I had learned it and
99% of the books and vids I’ve seen discussing this ending - and I’ve checked,
all show the mate with White mating the Black King on either a8 or h8.

When looking at the game I discovered that although I can do this reasonably
quickly when chasing a King from a8 to h8 I was losing all my patterns and
trying to do it with the Black King sitting in my lap, it was not at all easy.

I suggest you master the a1-h1 or h1-a1 technique, in fact I urge you to master any
technique. The number pf RHP games drawn with this exact same ending is 183.

Two RHP players played on from here...

..for 93 moves before White gave up.

This is how I ‘eventually’ mated the Black King on a1.

Unheard Melody No. 210

For all the words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these; ’it might have been,’
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-92) not much of a poet but perfectly applicable

John Cochrane - Howard Staunton London, 1842

This one is more of a missed guitar riff than an actual melody. But if it had
come off it would have done the tours off the Coffee Houses to cries of ‘Bravo!’

White to play. Black has just played 23, Ne4-g5.

Staunton sets a trap only a reasonable player would fall into 24.Nxe6 Nxe6
25.Qxd5 and White is winning. A weaker player would not go near the pawn
on e6 missing the move 25.Qxd5. Cochrane defused the trap by playing 24.e4.

So what was the combination Staunton had up his sleeve to meet 24.Nxe6.

I have an RHP game with a Knight+ Rook+ Queen mate.

TUBTUB - Odinson RHP 2017 (White to play)

28.Ne7+ Ncxe7 29.Rxf8+ Kxf8 30.Qf7 mate.



When the a-pawn promotes on a1 you pick up with the skewer Qh1+





The thread accompanying this blog is Thread 200433