his position comes from a 3 0 game played on chess.com and was sent to me by Joel Johnson.

 

   In the position on the right it is Black to move. 

 

   Answer below.

   Chris Peterson announced a "Colorado Chess Ironman" last week, which is described as a "A grueling search for the most dedicated chess players in Colorado."

   You can see the website for the Ironman, here:  http://coloradochessironman.com/

   I think that this is a BRILLIANT idea.

   In the past Colorado has had a "Chess Tour" with a somewhat similar idea - you play in tournaments and collect points.  Whoever has the most points at the end wins.  But recently there has been lots of bickering about the system, the scoring, the prizes, and the locations, etc, etc.  At this point the Colorado Chess tour is basically dead.

   Chris, along with Dean Clow and Gunnar Andersen took the best parts of the tour, threw out the bad parts, and refactored it into a really well thought out program, that I think could make for a good template for other clubs to use.

   The Colorado Chess Ironman is a mix of Classical Chess, Quick Chess and Blitz, which I think is clever (similar to how a traditional ironman mixes swimming, biking and running). 

   For example on the first day, May 14, there are two rounds of Classical Chess (G/75 + 30 second increment) followed by 6 rounds of Quick Chess (G/12 + 3i).

   The second round of the Ironman starts on June 11 with two more rounds of classical chess, followed by a double round robin of 8 rounds of blitz (G/5).

   You score points as follows:

	Win	Draw	Loss
Classical	24	12	0
Quick/Dual	16	8	0
Blitz	6	3	0

   So each each mini tournament you can score 96 points - (for example, 4 rounds of classical chess times 24 points = 96 possible points.  16 games of blitz times 6 points = 96 possible points, etc).

   Here is a schedule snapshot:

   May 14, 2016
      •Classical #1 (G/75 + 30i, round 1, 2)
      •Quick #1 (6 round G/12 + 3i)

   June 11, 2016
     •Classical #1 (G/75 + 30i, round 3, 4)
     •Blitz #1 (8 double round G/5)

   July 16, 2016
     •Dual (6 round G/30 + 15i)

   August 20, 2016
     •Classical #2 (G/75 + 30i, round 1,2)
     •Quick #2 (6 round G/12 + 3i)

   September 17, 2016
     •Classical #2 (G/75 + 30i, round 3,4)
     •Blitz #2 (8 double round, G/3 +2i)

   I am all signed up for the Ironman and looking forward to it!

   Here is the complete game:

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2015.09.24"]
[White "spolem"]
[Black "D_for_DJ"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1885"]
[BlackElo "1912"]
[TimeControl "3|0"]
[Termination "D_for_DJ won by checkmate"]

1.e4 a6 2.d4 b5 3.Nc3 Bb7 4.a3 Nf6 5.Bd3 e6 6.h3 d6 7.Nf3 Nbd7 8.O-O h6 9.Bf4 g5 10.Bd2 Rg8
 11.Nh2 h5 12.e5 dxe5 13.dxe5 Nxe5 14.Be2 g4 15.h4 g3 16.fxg3 Bc5+ 17.Kh1 Rxg3 18.Nf3 Nfg4 19.Be1 Qxh4+ 20.Nxh4 Rh3#
 0-1
 

   You can play through this game here: https://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=1291908407

 

   Answer:

 

   Black has a cute checkmate with 19...Qxh4+ 20.Nxh4 Rh3# taking advantage of the pinned g pawn.

  

 

   Happy Tactics!

 

   Your Friend,

 

   P.S. here is the Ironman link again - http://coloradochessironman.com/