On Monday I left you with this position submitted by Maxim.

It must be really boring, mustn’t it, because there are no queens on the board!

It’s Black (Maxim) to play and win.

The key move is 1… Nh5+, when White has three choices, each of which is met by a different reply. 2. Kh3 is met by Rf2. 2. Kg4 is met by Rg2+. 2. Kh4 is met by Kf6.

Maxim tells me:

I had 10 mins on my clock in above position, vs my opponent’s 1.

I used 8 minutes and correctly (it turns out) calculated 2 of the 3 critical variations. The 3rd I just had to cross my fingers and trust my intuition! Luckily my opponent played into the easiest winning line.

There are some very pretty themes. Worth spending some time on!

I think it would be very hard for most of us to see much of this. As Maxim says, you just have to trust your intuition. White’s king is cornered and Black has various ways of creating mating threats.

How much of this did you manage to work out? Click on any move for a pop-up window.