{"id":15342,"date":"2025-12-08T11:06:03","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T18:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sniff-for-the-unexpected\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:46:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:46:40","slug":"sniff-for-the-unexpected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sniff-for-the-unexpected\/","title":{"rendered":"Sniff for the unexpected"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Young Rudolf the reindeer surprised Santa with his red nose. Santa first thought Rudolf had a bad cold, but then saw his nose emitted a light so bright. The rest went down in history.<\/p>\n

Like Rudolf, Magnus Carlsen surprised Alireza Firouzja in this week\u2019s position by underpromoting his pawn, forcing checkmate. With this hint in mind, please try to find White\u2019s three-move mating line.<\/p>\n

Black\u2019s advanced g2 pawn is dangerous, as Black\u2019s queen threatens check on e1 followed by queen to f2. This move both defends and attacks. Immediate action is required by White.<\/p>\n

White replies with queen to g8, check. Black\u2019s rook must take the queen.<\/p>\n

Now the red light lit up on Carlsen\u2019s nose. He promoted his pawn to a knight, not a queen, double-checking Black\u2019s king (see next diagram).<\/p>\n

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

Black\u2019s only move is king to h8. White\u2019s rook slid over to h7 as if on a sled and mated Black with the support of the knight.<\/p>\n

Expect the unexpected, Rudolf later said to Santa when he grew up. Rudolf was referring to heavy clouds and fog. All the same, let your nose sniff for the unexpected on the chessboard, and you may find an unexpected gift.<\/p>\n

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

mate in 3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15343,"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-15342","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\/15342","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=15342"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19608,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15342\/revisions\/19608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15342"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}