This past week India’s Prag Rameshbabu won the prestigious St. Louis Rapid and Blitz chess tournament. World championship contender Javokhir Sindarov placed second. This week’s position is from Prag’s game against America’s Awonder Liang, who is a student at the University of Chicago.

In this week’s position Prag is black and Awonder is white. White’s knight threatens black’s queen. Even so, doubled rooks along the 7th or 2nd ranks are usually more formidable than a queen. With this hint in mind please find black’s winning line.

White’s doubled rooks on the “f” file are ominous. Prag eliminates this dark cloud by having his bishop capture white’s rook on f1. If white declines black’s queen sacrifice and takes the black bishop with its rook on f2, black’s queen moves to a3. Here, black has won the exchange and has a dominant position. White’s queen will need to retreat and black will soon force a rook trade on c1 and activate its knight by moving to f4. From here, a player of Prag’s caliber wins easily.

If white instead takes the queen, black’s rook takes white’s rook on f2. Black’s threat to double his rooks on 2nd rank and win the bishop is now the real dark cloud in the position. If white trades bishops on f1, black’s rook on c3 slides to c1, threatening mate. White retreats his queen to h3 to protect the pinned bishop. Black’s knight hops to f4, attacking the queen (see next diagram).

Here, white’s best response is to check black from c8 with his queen. This effectively is a rook for a queen trade, as black’s c1 rook takes the queen on c8 and white’s knight on d6 next takes the rook. This results in a decisive material advantage for black.

After black’s rook captures white’s rook on f2, white’s alternative to capturing black’s bishop on f1 is to move his king to g1. Black next takes white’s bishop on g2 with his f2 rook, checking white. The white king escapes check by taking black’s bishop on f1. Black doubles its rooks on the 2nd rank and white moves its queen to f3 to defend white’s king. Black then moves its g2 rook to d2 (see next diagram).

The only way for white to stop mate is for its queen to block the rook check from the 1st rank. Moving the white king back to g1 or moving the queen to e4 prepares the queen block. Black will trade its rook for white’s queen with a decisive material advantage.

Doubled rooks on the 7th or 2nd ranks are called “Pigs on the 7th” or “Pigs on the 2nd” because they chew up the opponent’s position.

Reach Eric Morrow at ericmorrowlaw@gmail.com or (505) 327-7121.