Saturday Solving:
An Especially Tough Calculation Exercise

Last week’s position saw a flashback to an era in which chess was still taking its first steps as a widely played game. It was surely an unprecedented event in Estoril, Portugal when former World Champion Alexander Alekhine gave a simultaneous display there in 1940, and it was from this event that we drew our most recent problem. If you haven’t seen it yet and would like to try to solve the position, you can find last week’s Saturday Solving at this link. And now, let’s see what Alekhine had overlooked!

It is safe to say that this was a game with chances for both sides, but in the end black’s nerves got the best of him. This week’s position features a more sober setting, in which two of the best players in the world exhibited a fairly simple oversight with plenty of time on the clock. Coming up to the diagram position, GM Wesley So had played a bit too aggressively as black out of the opening, but it was only his last move that allowed GM Sergey Karjakin (playing white) to deliver a knockout blow. However, both parties inexplicably missed the final touch to the combination, which would have seen black lose his queen. Without further ado, let’s see the position (white to move).

Remember to analyze the position in as great a depth as possible: the final move makes the difference. Both players saw the combinative idea but failed to take that final step in calculation. Good luck, happy solving, and thanks for reading!