41 s · Instagram ↗
1925 / Moscú
Carlos Torre’s windmill
Carlos Torre Repetto — Emanuel Lasker
The queen falls and the windmill begins. The rook captures with check; when it moves away, the bishop checks again.
Explore the game ↓Would you have found the move? →THE STORY
A queen in exchange for time
Moscow, 25 November 1925. Carlos Torre Repetto has White against Emanuel Lasker. At move 24, both players still have equal material. Torre exploits the way his rook and bishop can work together.
The rook will capture pieces far from the king while the bishop forces a response to check. Then the rook returns to g7 and the cycle starts again. That repeated back-and-forth movement is the windmill.
UNDERSTAND THE COMBINATION
Inside the windmill
All the moves
1-0
YOUR TURN
Turn the windmill
White to move. Capture a piece while giving check with another.
Drag a piece or tap its starting and destination squares. With a keyboard: select a square and press Enter.
Keep training ↗Read all five chapters
Prepare the pieces
The rook moves to g3. The bishop on g5 still blocks its path to g7. Watch how one move can release two lines.
The queen is exposed
25.Bf6 removes the bishop from the fifth rank and clears the g-file. Lasker accepts the queen; Torre begins his combination.
One capture, two pieces
The rook delivers the first check. When it leaves g7, the bishop takes over. The king must answer before Black can save material.
The windmill turns again
Returning to g7 is the key: it forces the king back to h8 and allows another capture with discovered check, this time taking the bishop on b7.
What White actually gains
The rook recovers the queen on h5. Lasker then captures the bishop on f6, but Torre also takes the h6-pawn, leaving him three pawns ahead.
Game and history sources
Video, explanations and animations by RookHabit. Pieces by Colin M. L. Burnett, distributed with python-chess (GPLv3+).
