Monday 9 September 2013

Looking for help

Helpmates are the kind of problems that most chessplayers avoid. The usual complaint is that 'it has nothing to do with normal chess', which is mainly true. But as with other sorts of exercise, the effort in solving such puzzles may help improve your overall thought process.
As a bit of a taste here is an interesting helpmate in 2 (sourced from Solving in Style by John Nunn). The convention for helpmates is that Black moves first and White delivers mate on their 2nd move (with Blacks help). However there is more this problem than finding one solution. Once you have found the first answer, replace the Black piece on a6 with a Rook, then a Bishop, Knight and finally a pawn. So rather than 1 puzzle, it is actually 5 puzzles in 1. See if you can come up with the 5 answers.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Or I could just tear my eyes out and be done with it. :)
AO

Anonymous said...

Fun puzzle.

Queen: 1...Qf6 2.Nc5 Qb2 3.Ra4#
Rook: 1...Rb6 2.Rb1 Rb3 3.Ra1#
Bishop: 1...Bc4 2.Ne1 Ba2 3.Nc2#
Knight: 1...Nc5 2.Nc1 Na4 3.Rb3#
Pawn: 1...a5 2.Rb3+ Ka4 3.Nc5#

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