Not a Puzzle: What Would You Play in These 8 Positions?

@Milo280725 said ^

image.png (https://image.lichess1.org/display?op=noop&path=0J8gL0vUeK8x.png&sig=19005c8a9bcdce3422f08994bc9877eb71d33730)

White to play, What Move Would You Choose?

I’d also have to go 1.Bxa6, but for a slightly different reason.

My intention here is to remove the knight and weaken Black’s pawn structure.
This is also to prevent the knight from going to the b4 square. If that happens, I’d retreat my bishop to b1 or move the bishop to c4 and play a3.

After the pawn recaptures the bishop, I’d also go Qf4, just like the IM, putting pressure on the knight on the f6 square and attacking the d6 pawn.
If 2...Bg4, I’d go 3. h3, making the bishop go to h5.
And now, Black’s light-squared bishop is on an awkward position.

I wouldn’t be comfortable with this position if I were the Black pieces.

@tinaseiskaffee said ^

Bf4

I realize I failed to explain my idea. Id pressure the pawn on d6, then play Bb5 to eliminate blacks light-squared bishop, that would free up the b5 square for whites knight, putting more pressure on d6.

My first idea would be e5. If Rxe5 then Bf4. If dxe5 then Ne4 with idea d6.

When will the second puzzle start? @Milo280725

Thanks a lot to everyone once again for participating!

Voting will close tonight. I’m also collecting votes from two other platforms, and at the moment, two moves are leading the ranking.

All the results will be published tonight, so if you haven’t voted yet, there’s still time to do so!

Here are the results, as promised!

A total of 30 people voted.

Here’s how the votes were distributed:

In the real game, WHITE played Rae1

@ILikeBlitz said ^

I think that 1.Bc4 deserves attention, preventing counterplay based on c5-c4, b7-b5 and b5-b4 or Na6-c5, while also planning 2.f4 h6 3.Bxf6 Bxf6 4.e5 dxe5 5.f4, or maybe 2.Rae1 first. If Black plays 1...Nc7, I have 2.a4 a6 3.a5, and 2...b6 with an idea 3...a6, 4...b5 looks a bit slow, even Qd2-f4 could sometimes be good.

Incidentally, 1. Bc4 was played in the only game in the master database I could find with this position.

Hereby the second position
It is the same game
White to play

Hi everyone,

For this experiment I would prefer everyone to make their move independently, without seeing other players’ reasoning beforehand, because comments could influence subsequent choices.

So for now, please post only your move. If possible, you can delete the comments and repost just the move. I would definitely be interested in collecting comments and explanations afterwards, once the voting is closed, because they could be useful for the analysis.

Thanks again,

Bxf6, Bxf6 and Nd1 or Nd1 straight away. Also may i ask why you are doing this ?