Thursday, December 25, 2008

The twelve puzzles of Xmas


White to play and mate in four moves.

7 comments:

ejh said...

Do post your answers: please don't, however, if you recognise the puzzle (or have had recourse to a computer) until at least a couple of days after each puzzle appears..

All credits and sources will be listed at the end of the series, if not before.

Anonymous said...

Too difficult. Looks like it may be a smothered mate type puzzle.

PG

Anonymous said...

I finally gave up on 1.Qe7 Rd4. Now I think I have it with 1.Ne6. The second move is pretty good too. It's a "walling in" theme (unless I just made that up).

But I am bitterly disappointed that I missed the 12/29 puzzle. Very rusty.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant!! Well done AOP.

ejh said...

Yep - anybody fancy giving the whole solution?

Anonymous said...

The solution, with credit to AOP for finding it, runs:

1. Ne6 fxe6 2. Be5 dxe5 3. Qxc5 any 4. Qf8#

Just two variations, curiously both ending the same way:

1. ... Rd4 2. Ng7+ Kf6 3. Qg5#

2. ... R any 3. Qg5#

ejh said...

Hurrah! What with Xmas Day being a largely Victorian invention, I thought I'd use a Victorian puzzle: it's by Healey, Era Problem Tournament 1856. I took it from page 5 of Francis Healey's A Collection of Two Hundred Chess Problems (Longman's, Green and Co, 1866). I accessed it, as you may, via Google Books.