22
What's white's best move?
(hexbear.net)
Sometimes it's hard to know how to phrase things in here. I want the Goldilocks Zone. Not to obvious but surely not annoyingly difficult either.
How are these?
Hint: You'll probably want to peek at this.
It's a "!" move. It took Magnus ~3 seconds to find it. It's not crushing or anything. But it is hard to see.
Big hint
Poisoned pawn.
Answer
34.Rd3! It sets a trap. Even GMs can fall into a trap in speed chess.
34...Qxe4 is an a terrible move that means white gets black's queen for the cost of a pawn and a rook.
35.Rf3+. It's a discovered attack on black's queen by white's queen.
https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/112464692649?tab=analysis&move=66
I'm not good enough at chess to see long lines or anything, but in chess puzzles all I know is to think about forcing moves. In this case I see the rook to f3 or knight to g4 for check, but neither of those seem to accomplish anything. So now I read the hint, and I think it must be something that looks silly immediately. Rook to d3 forces the queen to move, which looks silly since it blocks white queen's line of sight on the e pawn, but now I realize if black actually takes the check then you move the rook to f3 and take the queen. So instead black would have to move the queen back which is just generally kind of a weak move to have to make.
But I don't see a way to force material or a particularly strong position here, that's all I see.
...
Ok, viewing the answer, I guess that's all there was. Puzzles with no clear material to win are hard :(