Written by Robert Jamieson on 6th Aug, 2010
Each week I go to great lengths to try to find you a new
position, hopefully something a little bit different, so I hope that you
haven’t seen this position before. (See Diagram). It looks vaguely
familiar to me.
I used this position in one of my classes today. The students’ task
was to find a way for Black to mate in 6 moves by promoting a pawn to a
R. One rotter managed to do it in 5 moves so I had to come up with
something a little harder. I went back to an old 19th century game
where White had lost in 7 moves with the checkmating move being a pawn
promoting to a N. Could they replicate this mate? Fortunately this one
was too hard for them, but, perhaps dear reader, not for you? Have a
go and see.
White to play and help Black mate on move 7 by promoting a pawn to a N.
ANSWER:
1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.b3 Qh4+ 4.g3 fxg3 5.h3 g2+ 6.Ke2 Qxe4+ 7.Kf2 gxh1(N)#
The final position.
A pretty finish to be sure.
