AK GRAND-PRIX CHESS PUZZLE CONTEST - August-09

Dear friends, dear chess lovers,

I'm glad to announce a new regular ALEXANDRA KOSTENIUK GRAND-PRIX CHESS PUZZLE CONTEST!

From now on, once a month here on www.chessblog.com I will give you 3 chess puzzles to solve, ranging in difficulty from easy to difficult. They will be challenging and interesting for everyone. I hope you will try to solve them on your own without help from the computer.

I will announce these puzzle contests here on chessblog.com, on kosteniuk.com, and on my Twitter and Facebook pages.

Below you will find the 3 first puzzles of the Grand-Prix, try to solve them and send your solutions as complete as possible to my email till August 31, 2009.

At the end of each month I will announce 3 winners who will get 3 chess prizes. At the end of this year, on December 31, 2009 I will announce the Grand-Prize winner who will get MANY useful chess prizes. The Grand-Prize winner will be determined by the number of times participated, and of course the maximum number of correct answers.

The more you participate in my puzzle contests, the more chances you will have to win, and of course solving my puzzles will be useful to you and will help you improve at chess.

Please answer only by email and not putting the solution in the comments to this post, give a chance to everyone to enjoy solving the problem on their own. And in the email, please mention whole variations to the end, do not only give the first move, special credit will go for completeness of the solution. When several variations are present, write them all.

Are you ready? So let's the ALEXANDRA KOSTENIUK GRAND-PRIX CHESS PUZZLE CONTEST begin!

Good luck!

(Above) Puzzle 1. White to move

Mate in 4 moves. Category Easy.

(Anove) Puzzle 2. White to move

White plays and wins. Category Intermediate.

(Above) 3. Black to move

Black plays and wins. Category Difficult.

Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk
Women's World Chess Champion
www.chessblog.com