{"id":16453,"date":"2025-09-22T16:20:34","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T16:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/whats-mightier-than-the-sword\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:57:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:57:14","slug":"whats-mightier-than-the-sword","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/whats-mightier-than-the-sword\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s mightier than the sword?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

The International Chess Federation\u2019s Grand Swiss tournament qualifies the top two finishers for two of the eight spots in the Candidates Tournament. Eight players then compete for the chance to challenge the reigning World Chess Champion.<\/p>\n

The Netherlands\u2019 Anish Giri won the Grand Swiss and moved back into the list of the top 10 rated players in the world, ranking No. 7. Germany\u2019s Matthias Bluebaum also qualified, placing second on tiebreaks.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s position is from Giri\u2019s final-round game against America\u2019s Hans Niemann. Giri is white; Niemann, black. Giri used a pin to win a pawn, then converted the advantage to win both the game and the tournament. With this hint in mind, please try to find how white wins a pawn.<\/p>\n

Black\u2019s c5 pawn lies on the c5-d6-e7 diagonal, vulnerable to white\u2019s bishop on e3. However, Black\u2019s knight guards the c5 pawn. Giri still won the pawn by first sacrificing the exchange, trading his rook for Black\u2019s knight.<\/p>\n

Black\u2019s bishop on e6 captured white\u2019s rook. Now white\u2019s bishop freely captures the c5 pawn while pinning Black\u2019s rook to its king (see next diagram).<\/p>\n

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

Because of the pin, Giri regained the exchange by capturing Black\u2019s rook with his bishop. Each player was left with a light-squared bishop, and Giri had won an extra pawn.<\/p>\n

The lesson this week is that the pin truly is mightier than the sword.<\/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":16454,"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-16453","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\/16453","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=16453"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20211,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16453\/revisions\/20211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16453"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}