The Tal Book WInner and Blind Swine Mate

The story so far. Detective Paul Green (green pawn...gedditt!!) the handsome
all round athlete with a full head of hair was trying to solve the murders of six
members of the Red Hill Chess Club. He had narrowed the suspects down to ten.

Five men, four woman and a dog called Blue. All the victims had been strangled
in their sleep. (spoiler alert! The dog did it with his leash. It was a clever dog.)

THE END

Greenpawn. Stop messing about, just get on with it. Who won the book? (Russ)

Nobody guessed the correct number (38) Malky58 was the closest (37) so they win!

The Tal connection was from Tal’s last tournament game on the 5th of May 1992.
In the following position Tal played 38.Ke1 and his opponent, Akopian resigned.

M. Tal - V. Akopian, Round 11, Barcelona 1992 (Tal passed away on the 28th June 1992.)


38.Ke1 1-0 (putting the King back on it’s home square. the last piece of Tal humour.’ )



A. Alekhine - A. West, Portsmouth 1923


It was Ray Keene’s birthday recently. Here is one of his Unheard Melodies.

S. Hutchings - R. Keene, Hexagon International Woolacombe 1973


1...Rhb8 suggests itself but first Ray played 1...h5 to weaken the g3 square.
White replied 2. h4 and then we see 2...Rhb8. White saw it just in time and
played 3.Bd1. We now play out what Ray had in mind when playing 1...h5




Next up is one my games from a blitz session on the 17th of January.
My opponent in a 9 year Ukrainian lad here in Edinburgh due to the war.
He won the majority but in one toe to toe encounter he made an opening error
that let me play a sac-attack that won my piece back and opened up his King.

G. Chandler - The Ukrainian Lad 17.01.2023 (blitz)


Onto a Red Hot Pawn Unheard Melody. Sadly there are quite a few missed glorious wins.

Celsius I - woody65 RHP 2011


Another Red Hot Pawn game featuring a few unheard melodies (and blunders.)

Pariah325 - BamLFC RHP 2021


White played 1.Rde5 can you see a better move. Let’s see what could have happened.


We are staying with the same game but first we must remind people of this mating pattern.


There are 1,136 exact same mates on RHP. That does not include games where Black
has resigned just before the mate nor does it include Black mating White...hang on...
There are 1,140 (very close!) Blind Swine mates with Black winning. the total = 2, 276.
In quite a number of the cases the mates need not have happened. Two recent examples.

Wepion - bshort RHP 2022 (Black to play)


Black played Rxf6 and was Blind Swine mated. 1...Rxe7 is winning.

Ivan Iahtail - sylvw RHP 2022 (White to play)


White has a number of ways of wrapping this up including a few forced mates.
But simply 1.Qg6+ Rxg6 2.fxg6+ Kxg6 3.Rf6 but instead White took the Knight.
1. Qxf6 Black triumphantly played 1.. Rgxg2+ 2. Kh1 Rh2+ 3. Kg1 Rdg2 mate.

So how come when looking at the Pariah325 - BamLFC game I started harping
on about Blind Swine Mate. Well we go back to the game see a missed opportunity.

Pariah325 - BamLFC (part II) Later this position arose and we take it on from there.



We finish on a Red Hot Pawn high (it’s not all blunders. Good moves do get played)

t8r - uhmail RHP 2022 (Black to play)


Black played 1...Qf1! Why not, no harm done. 2.Rxf1 Rxg2+ Kh1 and Blind Swine Mate.
White could have refused the Queen with 2.Qg3 but after 2...Qe2 Black is still winning.

The thread accompanying this blog is Thread 196018