A difficult two-mover

This is from my book "White to Play" by Alain White. First, note the set play. If BQ plays along diagonal, you have Qxh7 mate, and if QxQ Sf2 mate. Other black pawns are pinned or blocked, and if the bishop moves you have Qb1 mating.

So that is a block. Can you preserve the waiting nature of the problem with any quiet move? Try as you might, you cannot.

So please move the mouse over, or click on the 1.? to see the solution. After the key, white threatens Rg4 mating. We now have the changed mates or added mates, exd4 Qd5 mate, Kxd4 Qb4 is cute, original mates Qb1, and Qxh7 are still in play after the other two captures on d4 to prevent the threat.

The above kind of problem is called a block-threat. Very deceptive and very hard to solve, but with a sharp intake of breath or "aha" feeling when you solve it.

A staircase

In "Tasks: The cumulative principle in problem composition" republished as "Classic Chess Exercises", Alain White gives the above example of a staircase.

"Here we have another example of a consecutive White piece journey...The WQ starts from the ground floor of her house, and goes slowly upstairs to the very top. She then throws herself out of the window, to the street below, possibly with a view to suicide; and surprises herself as much as anybody else that by so doing she has really succeeded in mating her old enemy, the Black King, who has been kicking his heels on the street corner."

ha ha

Lev Loschinski, Two-mover, Black Arrival Correction

Lev Loschinski was a master of composition. His name is pre-eminent like Comins Mansfield for the two-mover. However, he was equally great in the three-mover, in the modern as well as the strategic, discovered various new artisitic touches such as the Loschinski "magnet". Here, we see a elegant and spare setting for a two-mover featuring 'arrival correction', a term connoting the mechanism for separating the white mates, as explained below.

After the key (click on the 1.?), a random Black piece needs to arrive on d4 to prevent the threat (>2.Qxa7). However arrival of a powerless Black piece allows 2.Qxe2 mate. However, since the Black piece that arrives has powers to move and is not just a square-occupier, new mates are required and enforced thus:

1...d4 2,Qxe2? d3!! Therefore 2.Bc4# (Black pawn has interfered with the fourth rank)

1...fSd4 2,Qxe2 Sxe2 Therefore 2.Ra3# (Black line-opening third rank, valve closing 4th)

1...eSd4 2,Qxe2?? Therefore 2.Qa2# (Black line-opening third rank, valve closing 4th)

1...Bd4 Therefore 2.Qxe2# (Black bishop has interfered with the fourth rank)

1...Rd4 (Completing the Grimshaw (defintion: Two variations in which Bishop and Rook interfere with the other on the same square)) 2.Qxe2? Rc4, Therefore Rh6#(Black rook has vacated the h file (line-clearance) while BB's control of h6 has been interfered with, this is Grimshaw)

Helpmate in 18, White king check avoidance

Another helpmate for fun. Before the dark-square bishop can sacrifice itself at c7, W's king needs to be sheltered from check by the black rook. This means the light-square bishop has to come over to f1.

The whole timing and strategy, as Black's king takes just the pawns on b5 and b6 and gets checkmated on a4, by the newly promoted queen coming from c8 to a6, has strategic appeal that is classic helpmate more-mover.

Note the elegant timing of the released black pawn on b7, creating the self-block on b4 in the nick of time.

This was part of a nice article from Ljubomir Ugren (Zagreb) and Marko Klasinc -Ljubljana entitled "Rekordi (tasks) Pomocnog mata" in the April 1973 issue of Problem.

Tries in two-mover, "schnittpunkt" theme

In set play, we have 1...Sd6 (a self-block) 2.Sd3 mate (it is OK for White to interfere with the d-line because of Black's self-block on d6. White chooses to close exactly the same line on which Black piece lies like an X-ray).

The pair variation in set play is 1...Sf6, 2. Sg6 mate (White closing the sixth rank, since f6 is a self-block)

The theme of schnittpunkt is the a point where two lines intersect. Let us try 1. Bb1 (or 1.Bc2).Threat is Qe4. This Try crosses the critical square d3. All mates are set except for 1....Sd6! (Now the set mate attempt failes 2. Sd3 dis ch? 2 Kf5!! White is closing his bishop's control of f5 (which is not ok) at the same time he is closing the d file (which is ok).

The pair try is 1.Bh7. Again threat is Qe4. Black this time defends with 1...Sg6! Now white's set mate 2. Sg6 dis ch is not mate, since he is once again closing his bishop's control of f5 (2...Kf5!!), not OK!, whereas closing the sixth rank was ok because of the self-block.

The Key was 1.Kf3! Threat 2.Qh5

1...Sd6 2.Sd3

1...Sf6 2.Sg6

1..R(f,g)8 2.Rxe6

1...Se7 2.Rxe6

1...B(g1->any) 2.Qa1#

In other notes, these two published an Original joint problem in 1955 in "The Hindu", a newspaper which ran a chess problem column that was, after my Rice, Matthews, Lipton, a bit of a Indian weekend entertainment some decades ago. However, 1955 was even earlier than my time....

Self-mate in 28, with cross-checks

In a "self-mate", white plays first, but he is trying to force black to checkmate him, not to give mate.

Therefore, although White may mate in one by d8=Q, he is not interested. He goes about a particular sequence of moves, forcing Black to make "only" moves, as one rook climbs down the ladder, giving check and covering check continuously. It dies on g2, Black making tempo moves with h-pawns. The other White Rook plays up the same ladder, giving check and covering check, sacrificing itself symmetrically at b7, even as an under-promotion gives White tempo moves to allows Black to mate.

Count the number of checks.

Themes with multiple cross-checks are called Brede checks, a term introduced by Alain C. White of an Ellerman three-mover in a Good Companion folder.