February combinations

February is the shortest month, and that´s why in this traditional article with combinations it will be only 5 combinations.
However, this time I focused on quality not quantity.
All of them are from my mobile tactics app, except the first one which is from one of my old games.
With a huge number of solved combinations during the last half year I think that I eliminated some problems in my play.
It has to do with my last post, but I will let explanation about that for the second part of that article.
All of the combinations in this post hides something deeper for tactical understanding.


The first one (diagram in introduction) is from my game against IM Milan Babula in Marienbad 2008.
I was white and I got very pleasant advantage in development and space.
For that I sacrificed a pawn.
Now I have to break through!
Find the winning way.

In this example we have very interesting motive.
Black is on move, and his task is to prove something for two sacrificed pieces.
He can easily win a queen but than White would still be up on material.
Is there something else what is in Black´s advantage or White´s disadvantage?

Should Black win a queen and than try to find something in that position, or he/she should go for something completely different?

White is on move in this example.
Black is pawn up, but he is pinned and White passed pawn on a-file is very dangerous.
However there is something else, decisive, in this position.
A solution is tactical, but the theme is strategical, or conceptual.
What I mean with this is that you can solve it by drawing general conclusions, and then checking the variations.
This is not recommendable method in concrete positions like this one, when candidate moves and analyse of them are usually the best method.
Not this time!

By pure logic you can draw a conclusion who is on move here (Yes Hastings, Black king is in check, so it´s Black turn).
White just checked on f7, and all reductions leads to a position with exchange up for White (Knight is hanging on e2 at the end).
Or is it so?
It is impossible to move the king, but there is some very common theme which can be found if you look carefully.
I am writing about pattern recognition.

Which parts of the position are essential and which parts are just leaves on the tree ?

I like this one.
White is on move and he played:

1. Rxg7+

His intention is to follow with a check on g3 and so on....
Your task is to calculate the consequences of this move, and than after that estimate this sacrifice.
This is classical example of calculation training.
You need to list out candidate moves and go trough all the lines.
Method of elimination can help in this case, as your task is mainly defensive.