Forced Mate in 12???
Is it really true that White can force mate in 12 moves from the initial position?
There was a secret method that Alekhine learned from a Russian peasant in 1914.
He was in St Petersburg for the 1914 tournament and while he was at his studies a Russian peasant appeared at the door of his hotel room and told him that he had discovered a 12-move forced mate for White from the original position. Eventually nothing would do for it but that Alekhine had to set the board up and let the stupid peasant have his way… and sure enough, on the twelfth move Alekhine was checkmated. So he tried a different defence and once again he was mated in twelve. After several unsuccessful tries, he knocked on the doors of both Lasker and Capablanca. None of the three could find any defence against this mate in twelve.
This story was told on his deathbed by Alekhine himself, and of course one of his listeners asked “And then what happened?” to which Alekhine, with his last breath, confessed, “Why, we killed him, of course.”
Happy April Fools!
