Tactical Tuesdays - 1

I can safely say that most chess players love Tactics!
Many reasons,
threatening the opponent to either choose from King safety or his Queen safety, or
Check-check-fork when in time trouble, mating net or equalization when you are material up.

Personally my favorite player is Mikhail Tal a.k.a "The magician from Riga" world champion 1960-61. The book, "Life and games of Mikhail Tal" is a really good book, depicting how Tal played from his early ages of Latvia Junior championship to World championship with Mikhail Botvinnik

Tal's peak was seen in the Candidates of 1959 in Bled which he won the right to challenge the then world champion Mikhail Botvinnik.
Fun fact Tal won 4/4 against Bobby Fischer then !!

So, I'll start with some tactics which I saw in my games and was lucky to use them and win. You can try a hand at these puzzles.

Puzzle 1: I am playing black here, guess after Rce1?? how did I gain advantage

Puzzle 2: End game. White just played c7, and can queen soon. I was under time trouble here, fortunately I did see a good combination to get that threat out.


Puzzle 3: Here is a puzzle from Tal's game against Botvinnik in the world championship 1961. The line here is forced. Hope you get this tactic. Enjoy !!



Game: This game now played by Mikhail Tal vs Anatoly Karpov. Blitz game in 1987, a very beautiful game by Tal. How Tal uses his bishops to eye down the diagonals the king lies in. How Tal's pawns break open the black King's fortress. And Rook sacrifices !!

Hope you enjoyed this article.
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