Chess Reflections

As you may have previously read , I am currently working through "Learn Chess Tactics" by John Nunn . It's a beautiful book and you should get it.  There is one game listed in the exercise section of the chapter on Discovered Attack, that I wanted to share for its sheer beauty. The position is from the game Anand - Lautier 1997 . Here is the position ( Lichess link ), with white to move. Remember the theme is discovered attack: In this position, I saw that the white and black queen were lined up and a check with the light squared bishop would win the queen. So I considered 1. Rxf7 as a possibility, because if 1... Kxf7 , then 2. Bg6+  wins the queen. However, Kxf7 isn't really forced, and black could instead just protect their queen. The solution, which Anand played in the game, was the incredible 1. Bg6!! . Black is unable to win white's queen, because if  1... Qxd1  2. Rxe6+ (f pawn is pinned) , Kf8  3. Bxh6+, Kg8 4. Bxf7# In the actual game, the continuation ...

I started reading  "Learn Chess Tactics"  by John Nunn . This book was pitched as a book for players rated between 1200-1400 in a recent Perpetual Chess Podcast with Stejpan Tomi ( Hanging Pawns ). I don't have any John Nunn books and I thought that this may be a quick read (since I am a 1700 FIDE rated player). Chapter 1 tackles Forks. While I am well aware of the concept, the actual tactics puzzles at the end of the chapter aren't as simple as one would think, and it definitely feels above the 1200-1400 rating range.  Regardless of my opinion on the tactics work, there were two real pearls in the Chapter text, that I had never really considered before.  The first one on directions: " The two pieces most effective at forking are the queen and the knight. The reason is that the queen and knight can attack in eight directions simultaneously and therefore have better chances of catching enemy pieces in a fork than the rook and bishop, which can only attack in fou...