Let's begin by taking stock of just how poor a job of
developing Black has done. His light-squared bishop is, quite
literally, just a very tall pawn, for all the scope it has.
Meanwhile his dark-squared bishop is wandering around over on the
queenside, doing what heaven only knows. In this kind of
seemingly blocked position knights would be good to have, but Black
managed to trade those away already.
Black's biggest problem though, is that he's weakened
his kingside by ...e6 and ...g6, leaving these gaping holes all around
his king. Now maybe you've heard that before, that, e.g.,
Black's kingside dark squares are weak, and wondered, like I did, so
what? How do I exploit that fact?
I'll tell you a little secret I learned from reading
David Bronstein's classic account of the 1953 Candidates tournament in
Zurich, The Chess Struggle In Practice. David wrote:
...one day it dawned on me that a dark-square
weakness meant that the pieces on the light-squares were also
weak...
With that in mind, take another look at our position:
1.Rxf7
Removal of the guard - after Black captures with the
king...
1...Kxf7
...the king no longer protects h6, which in turn will
no longer protects g6, which in turn will no longer shelter his
highness...
Of course you saw that any other move by Black
other than 1...Kxf7 allows mate on h7, right?
2.Qxh7+ Kf8 3.Bxg6
Suddenly the Black king finds himself alone! Now
all Black can do is delay the inevitable mate with a silly move like
3...Qf6 although in my game my opponent tried...
3...Re7 4.Qh8 mate
1-0
Problem
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Tactics, Tactics,
Tactics...
