Two attacking Focal Points and a Smidgen of History

EarthsMantra, out of the Netherlands playing at the Internet Chess Club, is normally very tactically alert and difficult to beat. However today he was in a passive mood and not playing very well when he allowed the following position where he fatally weakened a long diagonal near his King.

This ICC veteran just played Bf3 blocking the checkmate at g2 while simultaneously attacking the mating Black Bishop at b7. So it appears the earth lover from Holland is out of the woods and defending well with the White pieces.

However exponents of the great attacking book written by Vladimir Vukovic will quickly observe that Black has two mating focal points that render White's position untenable.. See if you can find both of these relatively easy mating patterns Enrique Rios!  You should have beaten Anthony Saidy in Las Vegas dude!

Also we owe a lot to Vukovic's book titled Art of Attack in Chess where the author mentions the Indan version of chess called chaturanga which initially did not involve castling because the queen(fers) only moved one square and the Bishop or Alfil moved just two  squares!

Thus the King had no fears in those days because of the decreased mobility of the Queen and Bishop. Castling became a necessity when both of those pieces were given their long range mobility that we see nowadays.

Who is winning the Double rook and pawn ending?

In this rook and pawn ending, both sides have their rooks doubled on their opponent's second rank. With White to move, Rf7 check is the obvious move. Who stands better? There is a saying in chess known to every Russian school boy and according to Alex Yermolinsky every Russian school girl! The saying is "every rook and pawn ending is drawn"

In the diagrammed position, it is White who has to fight for the draw despite the fact that his rooks are doubled and he gives check on the move!! I can just hear Lewis McClary exhorting it is a draw you MORON!

In his younger less discreet days, Yermo who had a tremendous amount of contempt for USCF policy and politics once dropped the F-BOMB describing the United States Chess Federation. Now that Alex makes much of his income at the internet chess club, he has toned down his harsh denunciations of the USCF.