Double Rook & Queen Sac !

I have managed to beat Level 8 out of 10 on the free Chess App on my Android phone(second attempt)! I'm not really sure how strong it is but, like a greedy kid in a sweet shop it went for whatever treats it could get it's hands on as quickly as possible and munched on them while I was busy concocting a tactical device to blow it away! Who says that you can't learn tactics from books? :) Most of my tactical ideas have come through a dedicated study routine, and this game proved that the tactical motifs can be learnt by familiarisation and the process of reading through them. I'm the first to admit that I'm NOT the most gifted chess tactician - far from it - but tactics can be learnt - hence this Blog!

You can easily see from the game that with a Queen on f7 (Move 26) White can't really finish off Black with a brute force combination ... but remember Philidor's Legacy and it is all quite easy to spot. There should be a Knight on h6 with the Queen giving herself up on g8 - Therefore to make this happen I need to retreat the Queen to b3 (Black gobbles up another Rook at this point) to allow Nf7+ Kg8, Nxh6+ Kh8, Qg8+ Nxg8 (Knight must capture because King cannot of course) Nf7# - instead of a smothered mate I have a neat little Knight and Bishop mate - easy when you know what to look for ... Of course this combination had to be forcing otherwise it would have been mate against me on the next move. Here is the game ...

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 e6 6. Nxf5 exf5 7. Nf3 Bd6 8. Bc4 Nf6 9. Bg5 Nbd7 10. O-O O-O 11. Re1 Qb6 12. Bb3 c5 13. c3 Qc7 14. Bc2 cxd4 15. Qxd4 f4 16. Rad1 Bc5 17. Bxf4 Qb6 18. Qd2 Rfe8 19. b3 a5 20. Bf5 Rad8 21. Qc2 h6 22. Ne5 Nf8 23. b4 axb4 24. Qb3 Bxf2+ 25. Kh1 Bxe1 26. Qxf7+ Kh8 27. Qb3 Rxd1 28. Nf7+ Kg8 29. Nxh6+ Kh8 30. Qg8+ Nxg8 31. Nxf7# 1-0

PGN Viewer courtesy of http://chesstempo.com/