Lichess Puzzle #2: A Missed Chance to Win Black's Queen

Here's another puzzle from Lichess. It is White to move and gain a winning advantage. Taking a quick look at the board, we know that White's next moves must all be forcing because Black is threatening checkmate on b1. But it won't be that difficult to calculate.

First thing you'll see is that Rxe6 forces Black to make a decision. If he were to take the rook with the king, his king and queen will be forked and possibly won. Otherwise, if he simply moves the king away, it will continue to be harassed by the rook until White's pieces become very active and pose a big danger to the Black king later on. In fact, in one of the lines that the engine suggests, there is a forced mate after Rxe6, Kc7, Rc6+, Kb7, and then Qxd5. However, we will not look into that since it's a more complicated line.

Of course, we will look into the line where the king takes the rook seeing that Black will have at least a sliver of a chance in the endgame but no promises. You can check it out for yourself with the puzzle simulator below:

In the actual game, White did not play this line and instead, simply exchanged queens which is not completely bad. It just doesn't win right away for White. However, White was able to convert the position into a winning one later on in the game.

You may check out the full game here: