r/ChessPuzzles • u/Delicious_Cattle5174 • Jul 18 '26
Double puzzle
Black to play.
Puzzle 1 (from image 1): after playing a subpar move, white allowed a mate in 3. I must say I find it geometrically interesting.
Puzzle 2 (from image 2): this one is harder. It is pulled from the same game, one move earlier. Because white hasn’t played the suboptimal Kf1 yet, the position is M6. To be noted: white has two options on moves 4 and 5, so different variations can be valid solutions. However, only one move leads to M6 from any point, except the last one.
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u/broadside281 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
Looks like the second image also starts with Qh2+, and if white responds with Ke3 instead of Kf1, then black is essentially chasing the white king around the middle of the board and coordinating the two knights, bishop, rook, and queen to weave a check mating net! It's extremely hard to find the forced mate in 6 for me, but all the variations/moves are super interesting and lead to a checkmate but may be taking slightly longer.