{"id":125437,"date":"2026-04-20T10:20:50","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T16:20:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/what-lurks-in-pawn-chains\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T10:20:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T16:20:50","slug":"what-lurks-in-pawn-chains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/what-lurks-in-pawn-chains\/","title":{"rendered":"What lurks in pawn chains"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/figure>\n
Black to move and win<\/div>\n

Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan won the open division of the Candidates Tournament in historic fashion and will play India\u2019s Gukesh Dommaraj for the World Chess Championship later this year.<\/p>\n

It will be the youngest championship match in history by more than a decade, with both players 20 years old. Computers and the internet have accelerated the development of talented players such that eight of the world\u2019s top 20 players are in their 20s, most of them in their early 20s.<\/p>\n

In the women\u2019s division, it was a toss-up until the final round, with Vaishali Rameshbabu of India winning a tactical melee against Ukraine\u2019s Kateryna Lagno. She will play Ju Wenjun of China later this year for the women\u2019s title as well. Sindarov received $200,000 for his victory; Rameshbabu, $77,000. It is perhaps worth noting that Wenjun\u2019s world ranking is 179 and Rameshbabu\u2019s 411. Sindarov\u2019s meteoric rise places him at No. 5.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s position is from the Candidates game between Anish Giri of the Netherlands and Fabiano Caruana of the United States, who was the favorite going into the tournament. Giri placed second and Caruana third. Giri\u2019s win in this game knocked Caruana out of contention for first place and gave Giri a small chance of catching Sindarov at the time.<\/p>\n

Here, Giri is black; Caruana, white. Giri shows that mating attacks can lurk inside pawn chains. With this hint, please try to find black\u2019s best move.<\/p>\n

White\u2019s f5 pawn threatens black\u2019s bishop. The bishop can escape, but white would have a discovered check by the queen with pawn to f6, with the f6 pawn threatening black\u2019s queen. Defending against the discovered check with pawn to e4 fires back at the white queen, and things are messy for both sides.<\/p>\n

Black\u2019s best move is to abandon the bishop and move the king to h6. White\u2019s pawn then captures the bishop, as played, and black rejoins with pawn to e4, simultaneously threatening the white queen and queen to g5, checkmate (see next diagram).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

White\u2019s best reply to king to h6 is not to take the bishop but to retreat to f3 because of the threat of bishop to h5, checkmate. After the white king retreats, black\u2019s e5 pawn marches to e4, checking white with an unsupported fork on the white queen and king.<\/p>\n

White\u2019s queen wins the pawn, and black checks from h5 with its bishop. This forces the white king to move away from its defense of the queen, and black\u2019s queen snatches white\u2019s queen for a pawn (see next diagram).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

It is undisputed that Norway\u2019s Magnus Carlsen is the best player in the world and has been ranked No. 1 for the past 12 years. He and China\u2019s Hou Yifan, who has been ranked as high as No. 55 in the world and is a former women\u2019s world champion, opted out of defending their titles. Both players say they have proven themselves, and Yifan is semiretired.<\/p>\n

Judit Polgar was ranked No. 8 in the world but retired to raise a family and is still an active commentator during major chess events. Polgar is the only woman to have defeated active and former world champions in major events.<\/p>\n

Reach Eric Morrow at ericmorrowlaw@gmail.com<\/a> or (505) 327-7121.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

to move and win Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan won the open division of the Candidates Tournament in historic fashion and will play India\u2019s Gukesh Dommaraj for the World Chess Championship later this year. It will be the youngest championship match in history by more than a decade, with both players 20 years old. Computers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":125438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6416,5758],"tags":[],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-125437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columnists-chess-corner","category-columnists"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125437"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=125437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}