The weather here in Pittsburgh has been really nice these past few weeks, and I’ve been taking full advantage by studying chess outside. Yesterday, I picked up an old issue of Chess Evolution (May 2014) and started to work through the analysis before I reached this position.

White to move, and with Black’s king in the box, the win should be easy, right? Well not so fast. After about 30 minutes of calculation, I finally figured out the answer. Finding the solution without any prompting from a friend or engine made the composition a lot more difficult, but by asking the questions 1) What’s my opponent’s threat? and 2) Am I making progress?, all the sudden the answer doesn’t seem so contrived.

Rather than analyzing this study in post format, I decided to make a video of all the lines – winning and losing – so everyone could visualize the answer. Make sure to try and solve this one on your own first!