Two part puzzle

This is from a finished game (not one of mine!)

Part 1. Can you find Black's winning move in this position?


Part 2. In your opinion, how strong a player would you have to be to find this move and to have the confidence in your analysis to play it?

Well done, that is indeed the winning move.

It was a 1700 player who played it, and I was very surprised, but perhaps it's easier to find than I thought.

Originally posted by Sicilian Smaug
Rxf4! is the winning move

...Rxf4!
exf4, e3
f3, e2!
Re1, Bxf3 with forced mate.

I saw that immediately but I have been doing a huge amount of tactics puzzles recently😉. Maybe a 1600 player would see it and have the confidence to play it, perhaps less, I'm not too sure.

Actually after 4.Re1 I think 4....Qg3+ is more accurate than 4...Bxf3, otherwise the king can escape via f2.

...hmm, by just looking at it, I cant see how Rxf4 fails....

If it were an RHP game however, I'd whip out the analysis board and check every variation.....

On closer Inspection I found another continuation, which seems less risky:-


Qg4+ Kh2 Qxh4+ Kg2 Qg4+ Kh2 Rf5 Qxf5 Qxf5


^ while objectivly weaker, it should still win the game and its a lot easier to calculate.

Ill play it against fritz to see what happens

Rxf4!. took about 2 seconds to see the move and about 5 seconds to conclude that the move would be most probably winning and about 2 minutes to calculate main lines (Rxf4 exf4 e3 f3 (or Qd8+ Kh7) e2 winning)

This puzzle is generally pretty easy, since if you look at this position, you logically start to think about how to get that pawn on e4 out of the way.