Saint Louis Masters 2026 · 2026.02.28 · Elo 2501/2595 · interesting · ★★★★
The daily position for Friday 11 September 2026. It is still open to solve — the grader reads your whole line, sidelines and evaluation included, before anything here is shown. Cover the solution and solve it first →
Black to move. the model gives this to 1 in 4 at this level.
The solution
44…♔︎f7!(not44…♔︎d5?45.e6♔︎c446.e7♖︎a147.♗︎e5+−)45.♘︎f5a446.♘︎d6+♔︎e647.♘︎e8♖︎a148.♘︎c7+(48.♘︎g7+is as good:48…♔︎f749.♔︎f2a3−+)48…♔︎f5−+
44…♔︎f7 — the natural move
45…a4 — most players miss this · worth +1
46…♔︎e6 — the standard move
47…♖︎a1 — almost nobody finds this · worth +1
48…♔︎f5 — hard to find · worth +1
“hard to find”, “the natural move” and the rest describe how often this move is played by Maia-2, weighted across the 1500/1900/2000 audience the difficulty model is fitted on — a model of human play, not a count of anyone who solved this position.
Members can take this away as a PGN — the diagram, the verified line and their own analysis in one file, for a database, Anki or Chessable.
What happened at the board
Bharath found it · 0-1
the game went on45.♘︎h5a446.♘︎f4♖︎a147.♗︎h4♖︎f1+48.♔︎e4♖︎xf4+49.♔︎xf4a350.♔︎f5a20-1full game ↗
The field
83% of the 24 committed lines here found the key move — the model predicted 27% at this level.