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"Going for Mate" an unusual original puzzle

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:08 am
by bagheri
Image

First, you are allowed to place more Black's pawns on the board, so that, if it were then Black to move, he would already be stalemated.

Having put the required pawns on the board, suppose that it is actually White to move. The second part of this puzzle is to find the forced way of checkmating Black in six moves.


feel free to post your answers here... I will post the solution in a week time...

Bagheri (GM)

Re: Going for Mate

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 3:30 pm
by joelag
Hmm Amir,

the first part has been an easy one:
Image
But the 2nd part? A forced mate? That has been a tricky one:
1. Rh8 Kd5 2. Rh5 Ke4 3. Rh1 Kd5 4. Rd1+ Ke4 5. Re1 Kd5 6. e4#

CU, Joe

the solution Going for mate

Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:17 am
by bagheri
In the position with which you were presented, Black’s king and e –pawn had no legal move available. Therefore to engineer a stalemate situation for Black it is now only necessary to deprive his rook and his bishop of any move too. |This can bed arranged by placing black pawns on a3, a5, c3 and c5 but then one more pawn is also required on c4 to prevent the pawn on c5 from advancing.

I doubt if Black will be celebrating having three units more than his opponent, since his assorted collection of doubled and trebled pawns are all isolated, and must rank as one of the worst structure in history! The zero scope of his pieces is also unenviable and , with his king about to be checkmated by force in six moves we can safely say that Black is not safe here ! It is true that white’s pawn do not make a pretty picture either, but they do control many important squares, thereby denying Black’s king any escape from the following sequence

1. Rh8 Kd5 2. Rh5! Ke4 3.Rh1 Kd5 4. Rd1+ Ke4 5. Re1! Kd5 6e. 4 checkmate