Trying To Calculate 20 Moves Ahead (And Going Insane)

Introduction

I tried to calculate 20 moves ahead. It did not end well.

This is a blog about Listudy's Blind Tactics feature. Basically, it's similar to a tactic, but you have to look a few moves ahead for the position in which the tactic occurs. Here's what it looks like:

As you can see, the Blind Tactic calls for you to find the right move for Black in the position after 19... Ng4 20. Bxg4. You can use this as a very, very easy warmup exercise to get used to the idea of Blind Tactics. The solution is 20... Bg1+ 21. Kg1 Qh2#  (highlight to see).

In this blog, we'll start with some Very Easy Blind Tactics and work our way up to an Impossible Blind Tactic (the 20-mover). Let's get started!

Tactic #1 - Very Easy

Here's the first tactic, which is Very Easy!

The only difficult thing in this tactic is choosing the correct move out of two candidate moves. Did you solve it? We hope you did, because the upcoming puzzles are going to be harder!

Solution: 31... Rg4+ 32. Kh6 Be3#  (highlight to see)

Tactic #2 - Easy

This is our Easy tactic.

As advertised, it is somewhat easy - only 3 ply. Take a moment to visualize the resulting position and solve the blind tactic. 

Hint: The first and second moves are checks! You need to trap the Black king in a mating net before delivering checkmate!

Solution: 46. Rge6+ Kf4 47. Rd4+ Kg5 48. h4#

The first two tactics are pretty easy. Let's move onto some slightly harder ones!

Tactic #3 - Easy-Medium

We're upping it a notch with this Easy-Medium puzzle! While it is only 3-ply, the move is quite hard to find!

Congratulations if you were able to find it! If you weren't, you may want to use our hint:

Hint: It's an Anastasia's Mate on the h-file!

Solution: 22... Ng3+ 23. hxg3 Rh5#

Tactic #4 - Medium

Now at 3-ply, and we have a very beautiful puzzle here! I encourage you to try to solve it.

Hint: It's a queen sacrifice!

Solution: 28... Qg3+!! 29. hxg3 hxg3#

Tactic #5 - Medium-Hard

We're going to increase the ply again to 6! This means that we're thinking three moves ahead! I struggled with this one, barely getting it right, so that doesn't inspire too much confidence in me solving the 20-move, 40-ply Impossible puzzle!

Anyways, here it is:

Hint: It's another queen sacrifice!

Solution: 48. Qg7+ Bxg7 49. Ra8+ Rc8 50. Rxc8+ Bf8 51. Rxf8#

Tactic #6 - Hard

Oof. I spent fifteen minutes on this puzzle. We increased the difficulty again to 10-ply, which means we're thinking 5 whole moves ahead! Luckily, I successfully solved it to stay in the challenge. Can you?

Hint: The bishop is giving a discovered check, so you have to move a piece in the way to unveil it!

Solution: 19. Nf5+ Ke8 20. Nxg7#

Tactic #7 - Very Hard

Well, it was fun, but all good things come to an end. This 14-ply, 7-move Very Hard puzzle tapped me out. Of course, I will attempt the Impossible puzzle, but the challenge is over for me. 

Hint: Remember that you have a pawn on h5 which will play a critical role in supporting a piece move to g6!

Hint #2: The first move sacrifices the rook, which will be on b7.

Solution: 39. Rxh7+ Kxh7 40. Qxg6+ Kh8 41. Qh6#

Tactic #8 - Impossible

Before we get into this, I would like to congratulate you for making it all the way until the end to the blog post. I will now be trying to tackle the Impossible Blind Tactic, which is 20 moves and 40 ply in length. If I do get it, it will definitely be by luck or guessing. But if any reader actually correctly solves this... you're lying, or you're Kasparov. 

Anyways, here's the actual puzzle:

Unfortunately, no matter how hard I visualized, I could not solve this. My quest to calculate twenty moves ahead had miserably failed. But yours hasn't! Use these three hints to solve it!

Hint: Git gud, you can't solve this even with a hint.

Hint #2: Ok, fine. The first move is a retreating queen check.

Hint #3: There are no White pieces covering the e3-square.

Solution: 16... Qe7+ 17. Kd3 Qe3#

Conclusion

Well, thanks for reading! This was a really interesting blog to make. Please tell me in the comments how far you got! Until next time, thanks for reading the Daily Rat!