Spot the Move! #2 Opper to Move!

Today (Saturday 24th November) is the final day of the 2018 Crazyhouse World Championship and Day 3 of the Final between opperwezen and JannLee is at 1800GMT. It will be followed by an Elite Arena (>2100 zh on lichess) at 2100GMT and opperwezen has expressed interest to team up with Jann for some hand-and-brain crazyhouse this weekend or over the coming few days. This is also the crazyhouse week of the FischyVishy variant tournaments on Lichess. See the crazyhouse calendar in the right sidebar for timings. But who will be crowned the Crazyhouse Champion in less than 8 hours?

Day 1 saw JannLee edge ahead 11-9 in the first 20 games. On Day 2, opperwezen bounced back winning 12-8. The score therefore stands at 21-19 in favour of opper with 20 games to play. If scores are tied at 30-30 tonight, then two more games are played and again until the deadlock is broken and someone is ahead. The event will be live-streamed by JannLee (with 3-minute delay and without commentary), by flourish_zhouse with Antic, and also by myself (okeizh on Twitch) with MMichael aka TheFinnisher from the House Discord. It can also be watched directly with in-game chat on Lichess by clicking on either JannLee TV or opperwezen TV.

For an in-depth analysis of game 1 of 60 of the CWC Final, check out the video on my YouTube and do subscribe! Also, following day 1 of the Final a fortnight ago, there was a re-enactment for the CWC of the leaked video prep of Caruana in the World Championship in this very instructive 90-minute long video sharing opening ideas on how to attack weak squares in crazyhouse from beginning ideas to advance. Along the way, at 1:03:25 - 1:09:10 the camera pans to a study of CWC novelties and games, specially created by opperwezen and myself for the purpose of this video.

As a prelude to the action on Day 3, I would like to share with you some puzzles from opperwezen’s games with JannLee, followed by hints, solutions and a link to a lichess study at the bottom with full variations. These are not necessarily mating studies, but critical positions in which opper either did or did not find the critical move (sometimes under time pressure), and we challenge you to do better! Before we begin the puzzles proper, let me share two examples where by contrast it was Jann to move against opper, with solutions included. These two are embedded on lichess so you can move the pieces, but the puzzles you will have to calculate in your head.

White (opperwezen) has just promoted on d8 and it is Black (JannLee) to move. This was from a game back in 2016, but opper still remembers it. Jann did find the critical move! It both stops mate, as well as carrying an imminent mate threat of its own which indeed came to pass. The second example is from a recent game, and perhaps the players were unaware, but there was a critical winning move which Jann missed:

Now, in all the following positions, you are opper at the board and it is your move. You are up against the World Champion JannLee. What do you play? Write down the first move. Hints, solutions and a study with full variations follow.

Puzzle 1

Puzzle 2

Puzzle 3

Puzzle 4

Puzzle 5

Puzzle 6

Puzzle 7

Puzzle 8

Puzzle 9

Puzzle 10

Puzzle 11

Puzzle 12

Hints

Puzzle 1: 

Don’t give up the centre!

Puzzle 2: 

Develop with tempo!

Puzzle 3: 

The threat is sometimes stronger than the execution!

Puzzle 4: 

Defend with a counter-attack!

Puzzle 5: 

Take advantage of the opponent’s lack of development!

Puzzle 6: 

Maintain initiative!

Puzzle 7: 

Sacrifice to make a breakthrough!

Puzzle 8: 

Pawns are the matches to ignite a mating attack!

Puzzle 9: 

Distract the defender!

Puzzle 10: 

Attack the back rank!

Puzzle 11: 

Create weaknesses!

Puzzle 12: 

Know your mating patterns!

Solutions

Puzzle 1: d4! opper found the move twice in 2017, but subsequently missed it once in 2018. 8. Bxd4+ is the sharpest continuation for Black, followed by Qh4+, although this has never been played yet.

Puzzle 2: Bd6! opper missed the move! Nxd3 Bxd3 @b7 0-0 bxa8=Q is the sharpest continuation for White, but then Black has QxBa4!! QxQa4 B@b5 with multiple threats and Black is better.

Puzzle 3: NxNe5! followed by N@f7 recycling the threat. NxQd8 may also be equally good, so let’s count that as correct also. But opper missed the move, taking the rook which is certainly worse.

Puzzle 4: N@e2+! followed by @f3! attacking the White squares on which the White king must hide, dxQe7 can be met with fxg2+ Kxg2 @f3+ Kh1 BxPe7. White may have a queen on the board and a queen in hand, but RxNe2 is practically forced after which @g2 Kg1 fxRe2 and Black has three pawns on the second rank with a rook in hand and a fourth pawn threatening cxb2. opper missed the move.

Puzzle 5: Nd5! Black’s only defence of c7 is Kd8, after which Nxc7! anyway. Kxc7 falls to a mate in 11! There is a sharper defence in the study, but it still loses the Black queen. opper found the move!

Puzzle 6: Qxg5! Bxg5? falls to a beautiful knight mate. Can you spot it? opper found the move!

Puzzle 7: N@c5! dxc5 allows a stunning queen sacrifice Qxc7+!! followed by Nb5 which is mating. Ke8! is the best response from Black, but after Q@d7+ Kf8 QxNc6, White is clearly better. opper missed the move.

Puzzle 8: @f3+! Qxf3 or Kxf3! are both met by dxe4! and the former is worse because the threat is N@g1!! opper missed the move.

Puzzle 9: Q@h4! Taking the queen lets go of defence of f7, but not taking leads to a queen trade and the potential Q@g8+! followed by a double-take smother on f7. opper found the move!

Puzzle 10: Q@e7! BxQd1 falls to QxRf8 followed by R@h8+, R@e8+ Nxh7+ and @e7#, or even better R@h8+!! Kxh8 QxRf8 followed by Nxf7 with the smother. opper found the move!

Puzzle 11: N@h6+! is crushing for White, creating a weakness on g7. White may later even sacrifice his queen on g7 and finish with a minor piece mate. opper missed the move.

Puzzle 12: N@h3! White’s sharpest defence to stop R@g1# is B@g1, but then Black has NxBf4 and an inevitably mating attack via h3 and g2 although it could take over 20 more moves with best defence. This final puzzle was taken from a 97-move 3+2 game in April 2018. opper missed the move and Jann ultimately clinched the game.

In conclusion, opper hit a home run on 4 of these 12 critical positions. Bear in mind, a lot of these games were 1+0 zh and the opper of today would no doubt score much higher. How many did you manage? Check out the Opper to Move! Puzzle Study to play through any variations you might have been curious to delve deeper into. 

—okei