chess

You are Black in the diagram position. What would you play? White's threat is 1.Ng4, attacking the queen and the h-pawn. Since 1...Qg7? runs into trouble against 2.Ng4 h5 3.Bh6! Black is left with three natural responses:

1...h5 keeps the knight out of g4, but invites 2.g4!? or, more positionally, 2.Nf3 with Ng5 to come later.

1...Qf5 still leaves Black with problems after 2.Ng4 when 3.Qxf5 Nxf5 4.Nf6+ is threatened, winning the d-pawn.

1...Nf5 defends h6 and tempts 2.g4 Nd6! when the g4 square is no longer available to the white knight - but it is a pity to move the knight away from d6 where it keeps such a good eye on the weakened white squares of c4 and e4.

The position comes from a game Mannheimer-Nimzowitsch, played at Frankfurt 1930, in which Black found a remarkable solution to the problem. He played 1...Qh8!! tucking the queen safely out of the way to enable 2.Ng4 to be met by 2...h5. If White does not play 2.Ng4, then 2...f5 will keep it out of that square for ever.

The game continued 2.Qe3 Qg7! 3.Qf3 (3.Ng4 is now simply met by 3...h5) 3...Ne4 4.Bc1 f5 and Black was clearly on top. Here are the full moves, Nimzowitsch playing Black:

1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 Bb4 4 exd5 exd5 5 Nf3 Ne7 6 Bd3 Nbc6 7 h3 Bf5 8 Bxf5 Nxf5 9 0-0 Bxc3 10 bxc3 0-0 11 Qd3 Nd6 12 Ng5 g6 13 Bf4 Qf6 14 Bd2 h6 15 Nf3 Kh7 16 Nh2 Qh8 17 Qe3 Qg7 18 Qf3 Ne4 19 Bc1 f5 20 Qd3 Na5 21 f4 Qd7 22 Nf3 Qc6 23 Ne5 Qe6 24 Rb1 b6 25 Kh2 Nc4 26 Be3 g5 27 g3 Rf6 28 Rbe1 Rg8 29 Bc1 b5! 30 Nf3 g4 31 hxg4 Rxg4 32 Ng1 Rfg6 33 Rf3 Qg8 34 Ne2 h5 35 Kg2 h4 36 Rh1 Rh6 37 Rh3 Qg6! 38 Be3 Qa6! 39 Bf2 Qxa2 40 Be1 a5 41 Kf1 Qb1 42 Ng1 a4 43 Ke2 a3 44 Rf1 a2 White resigned.