Kowalski's Kompositions #1

I've recently been playing around with chess puzzle composition, and thought it was time to share one here. This isn't too difficult, but the theme is very pretty. 

Hope you like it!

If you like my chess compositions, you may also want to check out my music compositions. 

I clicked the link for Koltanowski, now I am kind of disappointed

Well thanks for the vote of confidence. :/

I like it.

Why? All these puzzles try to be clever by a non check waiting move on move 1, it's just a pain submitting answers to every possible reply.

This is pretty nice.

Thanks guys, I appreciate the comments.

Personally, I like a check on move one, especially if it has psychological factors that make it look "wrong." Here the rook can be captured immediately, so the bishop clearance theme has to be found.

There are also three different mating patterns, depending on Black's second move, so those need to be found before commiting the clearance sac as well.

Don't feel discouraged by the foolishness of others!

I like the mate pattern. What Scottrf really right. This is giving healing to kind of that puzzle. 

nice clean lines,to the point......i like it!

orangeishblue,

I appreciate the comment. I understand the ideal of piece economy in a study, and I find it an interesting tradition but not necessarily one I wanted to follow. This was a "mate-in-four" problem, and I probably should have labelled it that way. 

The extra black pieces and pawns are there because the position looked unnatural to my eye without them, and I prefer to look at positions that look real. They may not add to the aesthetic of the problem, but I think they do add to the aesthetic of the initial position. 

I lke your puzzle, but I must say I'm with the colours guy here.

Looking natural is not a "rule" in mate in x tradition, not having clutter is a "rule", it detracts.

I don't really agree, one of my favourite puzzles I've seen recently, plenty of the pieces do nothing:

If you strip them out, not only does it look less natural, but also shouts 'look here'.

I'd also like to point out that I didn't make it look natural in order to conform to a rule. 

There are countless examples of puzzles with natural positions. Is the objection because I used the word "composition," instead of "puzzle?" If "composition" has a specific set of guidelines that define a genre, then I apologize for misusing the term. 

Jamie, if you should ever enter this puzzle in a competition, those two pawns will either:

• render you puzzle ineligible for entry
• or be marked down so badly that you wont have any chance of even an honourable mention

which would be a pitty, because it's clever.

That's what I mean about rules.

Competition wasn't even a consideration here, but if I ever decided to enter one, I would surely read and understand its rules.

I'm still wondering about the terminology question though. If I had simply called this "White mates in four," would there have been any objection?

Composition just means not taken from a game I believe.

Jamie, it's a nice puzzle, I'm just nitpicking

"mate in 4" would have made it worse, lol. Those are the ones that have to conform. Maybe it's  "study" :)

That can't be right. Most "mate in X" puzzles I've seen look like they're from actual games.

Depends, some do look natural, but it's not a prerequisite.

Look at some of Loyds (100's of) puzzles. You'll find some that look natural, most are obviously contrived, but you'll be hard pressed to find a single piece anywhere that does not have a function. If you do, it was accidental, after all, he was only human....

I was thinking more like the puzzles found here: http://www.chess.com/forum/category/daily-puzzles