Woodpecker - The vast majority of these ends with a clear advantage for one side. Once in awhile however (see #258 below) it's not so clear at all. The book describes the final position as: "White is a pawn up, and blacks Bishop is a horrible piece, but it's not clear there is a way to force a win, although putting the King on h4, then pushing the d-pawn seems very promising"
Also - The book gives 34...Qxe6 35. Rg6 +- as another answer, both lines seem rather obscure to me.
Q: If it's not clear there is a way to force a win, then how is this a tactic?
@mchill
I was a bit confused, but then realised the first bit about white being a pawn up assumes that black doesn't take the knight as shown in the video clip. This leads to a position that looks terrible for black, but not necessarily losing.
If black takes the knight then it is losing as black has to sacrifice his queen to avoid mate and then has a queen against rook and bishop, but the queen is inside black's position and the rook and bishop struggle to work together.
The tactic does seem like the only way for white to avoid losing the knight. Maybe that is the point?
@Wyn-Davies saidThe tactic does seem like the only way for white to avoid losing the knight. Maybe that is the point?
@mchill
I was a bit confused, but then realised the first bit about white being a pawn up assumes that black doesn't take the knight as shown in the video clip. This leads to a position that looks terrible for black, but not necessarily losing.
If black takes the knight then it is losing as black has to sacrifice his queen to avoid mate and then has a queen against r ...[text shortened]... he tactic does seem like the only way for white to avoid losing the knight. Maybe that is the point?
Thank You Wyn. That makes sense to me.