
Today we bring you a special puzzle by Werner Keym, who is one of the most creative problemists I know. He specializes in problems involving castling, en passant captures and pawn promotion. For many years I have enjoyed his problems, which I often encountered. Many have the advantage of not being prone to instant solution by chess engines. They force you to think. His most recent English language book, "Chess Problems out of the box," is going to keep me busy for a long time to come. It is one of the most entertaining works I have ever encountered (and it is competing with Loyd, Dawson, Fabel, Smullyan and co.). You can get yourself a copy here (€12/US $12 + postage €2/€4).
And now without further ado here is a Christmas puzzle Werner Keym sent me:
It looks impossible: Black can always escape White's attacks, at least for three moves, e.g. 1.Bxf5+ Kxc7 2.Rg7+ Bf7+ 3.Rxf7+ Kb8 6.Rb7+; or 1.Rg7 Kxc8 2.Bxf5+ Bd7 3.Kd6 Bxf5 4.Rg8#.
The only way to mate in three seems to be after capturing en passant on f6. But in chess problems that is only allowed if you can conclusively prove that Black's last move can only have been a double step of the pawn: f7-f5. You must show that it was the only possible move, i.e. that any other Black move previous to the position above was not possible.
Let us make it absolutely clear: you need to find a position in which Black and White played one legal move each, and then in the diagram position Black played f7-f5, allowing White to play 1.e5xf6 e.p. and deliver mate on his third move. Can you find the previous two moves?
And if you are getting a feel for this kind of problem, here is another:
Niels Hoeg, Skakbladet 1924
How did this happen – what were the last moves?
White is mated, and clearly the final move has had to be ...Bc1-b2#. But how could that position have arisen? You must find a legal position that can lead to the above in three moves.
The solution to these problems will appear on the english ChesssBase Website later this week.
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