The Chess Problem Thread.

[Wowbagger]

I've just been shown a real beauty.



White to play. How should the game go (white is playing up the board)?

[Rowan]

can't see a killer blow, but would go bishop to C2,   would put black under a lot of pressure but would probably end up in a draw.

[Wowbagger]

It's mate in 8 in the main line:

1 Bc2+ Ka5 2 b4+ Ka6 3 Kc6 Ka7 (if ...Ba7 4 Bd3 mate) 4 b5 Ka8 5 Be4 Ka7 (...Ba7 6 Kxc7 mate) 6 Bf3 Ka8 7 b6 cxb6 8 Kxb6 mate

[Rowan]

heads off in search of chess board

[Rowan]

at least I was starting off with the correct move,  it was too many moves ahead for me to get my head round,  I knew black would be toiling in the corner but could not see the kill and could just see a stalemate.

[Wowbagger]

In problems like these, where there are minimal numbers of pieces, there's some hidden trick. I think for an experienced solver, the B on b8, stuck behind an unmoved pawn, is the giveaway. White has all the light-squared control because of the B & K, but minimal dark-squared control.

I don't know who composed this, but it turned up on an FB group I'm a member of. It could be Henri Rinck, a Belgian French* composer of some of the cleverest problems I have seen. I think it was the 150th anniversary of his birth last week.

*I just checked. I don't know why I thought he was Belgian.

[Rowan]

I think with such problems I probably spend far too much time looking for an unusual move, the move I went for (which turned out to be correct)  just seemed too obvious and I was convinced the solution would have been far less obvious.

Not that I can ever think 8 moves ahead with any accuracy, but in a game against another average player with a clock ticking, the move I went for was the obvious one knowing that black was getting cornered and that always give opportunities of a mate

[Wowbagger]

White to play. Mate in 3.