Chess School Quiz Challenge #16

Challenge

White has captured a knight on f6. How should Black recapture? With the queen or with the pawn?

Solution

Capturing on f6 with the pawn would damage the black castling position. The black king would be exposed. This would be all the more dangerous the more material is on the board. Of course, the German National team member Frederik Svane captured with the queen: 1...Qd8xf6!, the only and correct move to avoid a kingside attack. Black allows the weakening of his castled position, but only if White exchanges queens with 2.Qf3xf6. Without queens, White has no attacking potential.

1…g7xf6? would be disastrous. All of a sudden, the opposite-colored bishops would be working as attack amplifiers for White (see Lesson 2, Frederik Svane vs. Dennis Wagner). The black king's safety would be in a sorry state. Not only would the black king position be open, the diagonal e4-h7 could easily become a deadly path. Black would have the wrong bishop to defend the white squares around his king.