White to move and win. Have fun!
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
David vs Goliath
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White to move and win. Have fun!
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h8 Qa1
Qc8 Qa2
Qxc5 Qa1
Qxc4 Qa2
Qd5 Qa1
Qxb3 Qa2
Qxa2 b3
Qxb3 Bb4
Qxb4 Na3
Qxc3 Nb1
Qxd2++
i have to get back to work. theres probaly some more variations to this problem.
looks like the idea is to make a knight, then take on c4, then traingulate with the knight to be able to play Nxb3 mate
1. h8=N Qa1
2. Ng6 Qa2
3. Ne5 Qa1
4. Nd7 Qa2
5. Nxc5 Qa1
6. Nb7 Qa2
7. Nd6 Qa1
8. Nxc4 Qa2
9. a5 Qa1
10. Nxb3#
wlverine2121
What about
Qxc3 Nb5
Qxd2+ Kb1
You dont even have to triangulate, or calculate ANYTHING ! Any path to c5 will automatically lead to victory ! This is because of a very special property of the N! Since the N cannot match the color of the Queen’s square in the starting position (1. h8=N, Qa1 2. N any), which it will NEVER be able to match it in any subsequent time, no matter what it does ! That is when the N captures c5, Queen will be at a2 ! Which means Black will have to move the Q to a1 in his move, and then Nxb3 will be mate
Black is hemmed in and only the queen can move – oscillating between a1 and a2. Promoting to a black square bishop won’t work easily – the only squares are protected and their guards are either on white squares or otherwise protected. Promoting to a rook won’t work because lateral/vertical access is insufficient to reach the Black king. Ruling out the bishop and rook also rules out the queen. Note that if White moves and promotes to a knight, the Black moves to the same color square – which makes it easy to predict how to approach to administer the checkmate.
It is important to take on c5 before taking on c4, otherwise:
1. h8=N Qa1
2. Ng6 Qa2
3. Ne5 Qa1
4. Nxc4 Qa2
5. Na5 c4
6. Nxc4 Qa1
7. Na5 Qa2=
“then traingulate with the knight”
think again 😉
Jochen
PS: nice one ^^
1… Qa1 2. Nf7 Qa2 3. Ng5 Qa1 4. Ne6 Qa2
5. Nxc5 Qa1 6. Nd7 Qa2 7. Ne5
Qa1 8. Nxc4 Qa2 9. Na5 Qa1
10. Nxb3# 1-0
Hi from Argentina.
Cesar Cavalli.
yea it looks like the queen promotion wont work. you can just throw my effort into the garbage where it belongs. the knight promotion forking on b3 while queen on a1 provides the solution.it never occurs to me to promote to something other than a queen. i suppose this just taught me a lesson.
An amusing puzzle, more instructive then it seems. The first trick is underpromotion; from a quick glance at the trafic jam that occured in what used to be white’s queenside (assuming this is from a crazy game) we can see that it is impossible to reach black’s king with any other piece than a knight without giving black a chance to untangle its army. Only the knight can deliver mate without “uncorking the plug”, so to speak, and releasing all that contained energy. 1.h8N Qa1 Of course, this is the key to the position; black has no option but to move its queen back and forth unless white moves its king. That would be deadly, but it is not necessary. Therefore White’s task is easy to explain, even though it can be tricky to execute. 1) he has to bring his knight on the a5 square from which he can capture black’s rook on b3 and deliver mate. 2) He has to make sure he lands on that square when the black queen is on a2, which would leave black in zugzwang. If the black queen is on a1, she can jump to a2 and defend the rook. Since the queen is right now on a2, the “right” square, the knight has to take an even number of moves (4, 6, 8, etc.) to reach it’s goal, in order to land on the right tempo. 3) This being said, white also has to take into consideration the fact that before capturing the rook, he will have to remove the pawn on c4 which protects it, and the pawn on c5, which otherwise would advance to c4 and replace its friend. I find it simpler to remove the c5 pawn first, because then black has to keep moving his queen; otherwise the c4 push would alter the tempo count. In short : white’s knight has to land on a5 after an even number of moves, following a course that includes first c5, and then c4. Once everything is computed, the road to victory is quite simple: Nf7, Nd6, Ne4, Nxc5, Nd7, Nb6, Nxc4, Na5 (7 moves). Let’s try it out : 2.Nf7 Qa2 3.Nd6 Qa1 4.Ne4 Qa2 5.Nxc5 Qa1 6.Nd7 Qa2 7.Nb6 Qa1 8.Nxc4 Qa2 9.Na5 Qa1 10.Nxb3#
Susan I think you spoiled the most of the fun from this puzzle. When one gets the right idea to underpromote to knight, there is NO WAY to go wrong anymore – you can shift your knight through the whole chessboard whatever long you wish and still you can deliver the mate later. I believe that the original position was with the white pawn on h2 and black queen on a1. Then you have to forsee that the only winning sequence is the tempo-losing 1. h3! Qa2 2. h4 Qa1 3. h5 Qa2 4. h6 Qa1 5. h7 Qa2 6. h8N etc.
and that
1. h4? Qa2 2. h5 Qa1 3. h6 Qa2 4. h7 Qa1 5. h8N leads only to draw…
I agree with last anonymous, Pawn starting from h2 will be slightly more interesting.
However, if the knight takes c4, black can play c5 to c4 and then no way that white could win. Hence h8=N doesn’t mean a win for white. It should take pawn at c5 first and then c4.
— P. Anandh
If we move the white pawn to h2, don’t we have to move the queen to a1 to keep the excitement in the position?
Why not promote the white pawn to Queen, then pull it back to h6?
1.h8=N Qa1 2.Nf7 Qa2 3.Nd8 Qa1 4.Nb7 Qa2 5.Nxc5 Qa1 6.Ne6 Qa2 7.Nd4 Qa1 8.Nb5 Qa2 9.Nd6 Qa1 10.Nxc4 Qa2 11.Na5 Qa1 12.Nxb3# 1–0
Denis
French
That silly! I verified my calculation with crafty and sjeng and both engines did _not_ see the mate in two!
promote the pawn to a bigass bazooka and blow the shit out of that mass
There is also a mate on D3 if the knight captures c5, then c4 then D3
it takes 9 moves instead of 10. Does this make it better?
I think promotion to a bazooka makes more sense. fun problem
d3 is protected by the black rook – so that’s not a good idea, sorry!
Jochen