Saturday, December 31, 2011

The twelve puzzles of Xmas



GW Chandler, 1907

White to play and mate in two

4 comments:

Campion said...

1. Qf8 (have to do something about the c5 bolthole) and another nice zugzwang if I haven't screwed up?

I'd actually missed some of the lines and went off to check other 1st moves before returning to my first choice.

Jack Rudd said...

That Q+N battery looks very nice. We must exploit it by... destroying it!

1.Qf8! Zugzwang

1...Kxe5 2.d4#
1...Rxe5 2.Qb4#
1...Rd5 2.Nf3#
1...Rc5 2.Qf4#
1...Rb5 2.Nxc6#
1...R other 2.Qd6#
1...Bb5 2.Qd6#
1...B other 2.Nxc6#
1...c5 2.Qd6# or 2.Qf4#

The dual is a little unfortunate, but other than that, nice problem.

ejh said...

Quite right. Another one from Barnes (see last Tuesday) though p.27 this time.

Barnes, who misses Jack's dual, notes that Chandler was 17 when he composed this one.

ejh said...

It appeared, by the way, in Hobbies.