{"id":13724,"date":"2026-01-30T22:07:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T05:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/a-smart-general\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:40:08","slug":"a-smart-general","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/a-smart-general\/","title":{"rendered":"A smart general"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

In 216 B.C. at the Battle of Cannae, General Hannibal of Carthage trapped the Roman army with a double envelopment and slaughtered the Romans despite Carthage\u2019s inferior numbers.<\/p>\n

In this week\u2019s position, black has superior numbers, but white employs doubled rooks to create a trap and secure a winning position. With this hint in mind, please try to find white\u2019s winning line.<\/p>\n

Black\u2019s extra knight on h7 is almost trapped in the corner. White springs the trap first with rook to d8, check. Black must capture the white rook with its own rook or forfeit the rook. White\u2019s other rook recaptures with check, forcing the black king to a7.<\/p>\n

After the black king\u2019s retreat, white\u2019s rook slides over to h8, threatening the knight. White\u2019s e5 pawn prevents the knight from moving to f6, and black\u2019s pawn on g5 prevents escape to that square. Like the Roman army, the knight has no escape squares and is soon slaughtered (see next diagram).<\/p>\n

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

As long as white is wary of black\u2019s e4 pawn advance, white\u2019s rook dominates the board and wins the knight plus several black pawns. The rook is too strong for the bishop.<\/p>\n

The lesson this week is that poorly placed pieces lend themselves to being trapped by the enemy. A smart general will exploit that.<\/p>\n

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

white\u2019s best move?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13725,"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-13724","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\/13724","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=13724"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19127,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13724\/revisions\/19127"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13724"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=13724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}