5/25/2025 DPA

Here's what we can note in today's puzzle:

1. Whites king is unable to move

2. White is threatening to take our pinned knight on e4

3. All of whites pieces are hanging and our rook and queen are.

4. We are down a rook for a knight

Whites bishop is hanging, so what if we found a way to win it? We can use a discovered attack with either Ng3+ or Nf2+. In either of these positions, It seems like we may win the bishop, but we have to give away our knight in order to do so. This lets white have a winning position.

What if we use the same idea to set up a checkmate threat? If we play Ng3+, white is forced to take with the pawn. Whites king also can't go to g1 because of our bishop on c5. These 2 things combined trap whites king on the h-file. We can play Qg4, preparing to play a sort of "back-rank mate" (only it's on the h-file, not back rank... oh well) with Qh5. White can play Bf5, trying to block our mate. If we continue with Qh5+, white can simply block with Bh3. If we take the bishop with Qxf5, white can play Qc6, and now we lose our checkmate attack trying to save the bishop.

Are there any other ways to get our queen over to the h-file without losing the checkmate attack? If we simply push the pawn, white can just as simply take our queen. Same thing if we move our queen to g6, right? After white takes with Bxg6, we can capture with our pawn, opening our side of the h-file. With that, white has no way to (completely) stop Rh8#.

White instead plays Bf5, trying to block checkmate the same way stated earlier. So, what's changed in this position versus the position earlier? Well, our queen is now on g6 instead of g4, so how do we use it to our advantage? Our queen was blocking the g-pawn earlier, but in this position we can now push it to block the bishop. If white takes the pawn, we can take the bishop and set up Qh5#. And if the bishop takes the queen, we end up in the same position where we can play Rh8#.