{"id":13252,"date":"2026-02-26T20:58:44","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T03:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/open-lanes\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:36:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:36:22","slug":"open-lanes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/open-lanes\/","title":{"rendered":"Open lanes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Netherlands\u2019 Jan Timman was one of the world\u2019s top players from the 1970s to the early 2000s and at one time the second highest rated player in the world. He was also a beloved player and chess author. He died Feb. 18.<\/p>\n

Timman was renowned for his attacking style and love of complications. This week\u2019s position from 1985 illustrates his approach. Here, Timman is white; Garry Kasparov, who was world champion from 1985 to 2000, is black.<\/p>\n

Just as open water lanes give boats access and mobility, open lanes on a chessboard also grant access and maneuverability. With this hint in mind, please try to find white\u2019s winning attack.<\/p>\n

At the moment, black\u2019s rook pins white\u2019s bishop on b3. With the help of black\u2019s bishop, black threatens to win white\u2019s bishop. White ignores this and opens a lane for his bishop with pawn to d6, attacking black\u2019s queen. After the black queen takes the pawn, white\u2019s queen checks from f3.<\/p>\n

This forces the black king to e7, or else white\u2019s queen and bishop mate in two if the king retreats to g7. White\u2019s queen checks again from f7 with the support of his bishop on b3 (see next diagram).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>

The black king flees to d8 and white\u2019s rook pins black\u2019s queen with rook to d1 (see next diagram).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>

Black counters the pin on the queen with rook to a1, pinning the white rook to the first rank because white\u2019s king is on g1. White, however, unravels black\u2019s counterpin with queen to f6, check (see next diagram).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>

Queen to f8, check, also wins. Either way, on the next move white wins black\u2019s queen and saves his rook, with mate in the air.<\/p>\n

Timman\u2019s advancement of his d6 pawn triggered this attack by opening a lane along the b3\u2013f7 diagonal \u2013 a classic lesson from last century\u2019s positional play.<\/p>\n

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

move and win<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1091,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-13252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-columns","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13252","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=13252"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18884,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13252\/revisions\/18884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13252"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=13252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}