White to move. How many moves will it take you to checkmate Black?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
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White to move. How many moves will it take you to checkmate Black?
12
6, Kc7+ Bb7 Ng3-f5-d4-c6 #
For cheap thrills, put the pawn on b5 instead of b6 (same solution, but Black gets to queen).
Susan lets put it this way. With the 50 move rule and I was playing its a draw LOL ; )
1 Kc7! Ka7 2Bb7 b5 3Nf2 b4 4Nd3 b3 5Nb4 b2 6Nc6# six moves
2 Kb6 leads to mate in seven moves.
-Justin Daniel
Wait please, I must ask it to Caruana…
(Caruana-Zaragatski)
Regards
Me – Fritz 9 1.Kxb6+ Kb8 2.Bh3 The black king has only two squares. Now it’s about delivering mate with the bishop on the long diagonal after having brought the knight on a6, where it attacks b8. That can be achieved in five moves. 2…Ka8 3.Nf2 Kb8 4.Nd3 Ka8 5.Nb4 Kb8 6.Na6+ Ka8 7.Bg2# 1–0
Yeah, that’s a nice one — after Kc7 and Bb7, as the black king can’t move, you just have to count the knight moves from the corner to any check (which is necessarily mate, as the king is trapped — so long as it takes fewer moves than black needs to queen the pawn. And it does get there just in time.
billbrock said…
“For cheap thrills, put the pawn on b5 instead of b6 (same solution, but Black gets to queen).”
Yeah, that would make it more fun, with not a single tempo to spare — and you’d eliminate that alternate 7 move KxP solution as well, for Kxb5 would free up the black king.
Me? Let’s not go there!
However, the hero(ine) of the chessboard which we all aspire to be, or Judit with one eye open and one asleep (as Fred Friedel once recounted), could do this in 6 moves:
1.Kc7! Ka7 2.Bb7 – slows the bK down enough to simplify …
The important thing about an ending like this is being able to win it at all. Just glancing at it, since the Black King is in the correct corner, it shouldn’t be to hard to set up the second “net”, box the King in and mate well within 50 moves. Focusing on speed records and doing it as quickly as possible may not be the best approach for someone learning.
…continuing in that vein, White should probably play Bf1 and Bb5. After White’s Kd6, Black’s king is stuck in the correct corner. White should then maneuver his Knight to d5 to set up the net, and after that, mate is easy. How many moves it takes to do it is irrelevant. It’ll be well under 50, and even well under 30.
B-f1-b5 and Kd6? don’t make any sense.
For beginners (like me – in younger days I knew how to mate with KBN vs K but now?) Kxb6+ and Bh3 probably is the easiest way (black’s king prisoned in the edge by K and B – this is one (almost the last of many more) position to remember when learning how to mate with B and K) – why should I give the black king more room with Kd6? if I had already taken him so much room away?
But in this case Kc7 and Bb7 is obvious of course and even I would find and play this in a game.