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Miranda Liu won clear 1st place in the Under-600 section
at Knights Quest #45 September 20, with 3 wins and a
draw for a total of 3.5 points. She also demonstrated
excellent technique by finishing off the end of her 3rd
round game in fine style:
Position:
White: King f2, Rook c7, Rook d6, pawn c3
Black: King b3
Experienced players have no problem checkmating with two
rooks, but the pawn on c3 can actually be annoying and
make it harder to find a quick checkmate: The Black king
can hide behind it on c2! It's easy to get frustrated
and make a mistake when this happens. Of course White
could just push the pawn and make a queen, but that
increases the risk of stalemate and it is not the
quickest way to checkmate.
Miranda impressively found the best and quickest way to
checkmate in this situation:
When Black played ...Kc2 she used her king to take away
the "hiding squares" c2 and c1 from the Black king:
1. Ke2! Kb3
2. Kd2!
Now that the hiding squares are controlled, Miranda is
free to use her two rooks to checkmate the Black king on
the b-file and a-file:
2 ... Kb2
3. Rb6+ Ka3
4. Ra7 checkmate.
Well done Miranda, and congratulations on an excellent
performance and 1st place result!
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